Sweet treats are bad news because they typically deliver a load of kilojoules with little to no nutrition. A more troubling fact: as our consumption of sugar rises, so do the numbers on our scales. It’s difficult to say accurately what percentage of our daily kilojoule intake comes from sugar, as the most recent statistics are from 1995 (Australia abolished its national nutrition surveys under the Howard government, although there is a new National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey Program in the works).
Though there is no denying the escalating obesity statistics in Australia and New Zealand, there is some controversy in nutrition circles over whether sugar is to blame. Dr Alan Barclay, media spokesperson for the Dietitians Association of Australia and chief scientific officer of the Glycemic Index Foundation believes that it’s the over-consumption of all foods that’s making Australia fat. In the other camp, David Gillespie, author of Sweet Poison: Why Sugar Makes us Fat and The Sweet Poison Quit Plan points the finger squarely at the sweet stuff. “Sugar makes you fat,†Gillespie says. “It is directly converted into fat by your liver. It also destroys your appetite control signals – while you’re eating it you can never really tell when you’re full.â€
Now brace yourself for two more nasty newsflashes: (1) Eating sugar can stoke your appetite rather than satisfy it; and (2) Sugar can become addictive – no surprise to those of us who have a daily Snickers craving so strong we might be tempted to hurl an office chair at the vending machine if we ever ran out of change.
How hooked you get on sugar may depend on what kind you eat. Fructose – natural sugar found in fruit and certain vegetables – doesn’t make you immediately feel as if you need another sugar hit again, mainly because the fibre and other nutrients in those foods slow down the digestive process and help keep your blood sugar level stable.
And if getting too many kilojoules is what worries you, reaching for a Coke Zero isn’t the solution: artificial sweeteners may be almost as bad for you. In 2004, a study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that rats ate more after consuming an artificially sweetened drink than they did after sipping sugar water. Researchers speculate that kilojoule-free artificial sweeteners act like stomach teasers: as you swallow diet soft drink, your body anticipates the arrival of kilojoules. When they don’t show up, your body sends you looking elsewhere for them, often in snack form. A 2005 study by researchers from the University of Texas, US, found that people who drank a can of diet soft drink per day had a 37 per cent greater incidence of obesity. And because artificial sweeteners are often many times sweeter than sugar, stirring a teaspoonful into your daily coffee may mean that when you do use real sugar, it doesn’t taste sweet enough, making you reach for extra.
Once you know how much sugar you’re eating, you can control your intake.
Here are the tips:
Eat breakfast “Ninety per cent of sugar addicts skip breakfast,†says Kathleen DesMaisons, author of Potatoes Not Prozac. When you eat breakfast, you prevent the drop in blood sugar that makes you crave sugar later.
Pick fruit Satisfy your sweet tooth with apples, bananas and berries, which temper natural sugar with fibre and antioxidants. Dried fruit and 100 per cent fruit juices will also do in a pinch, but they don’t have nearly as much fibre and are more concentrated sources of kJs, so limit yourself to a quarter cup or less of dried fruit or one cup of 100 per cent juice a day.
Indulge right after dinner Late-night ice cream fixes give you a pure, unadulterated sugar rush. Have a small scoop soon after dinner instead and you’ll reduce (though not counter) the insulin-spiking effect.
Cut out “overt†sugars Tackle the worst offenders first: sucrose-laden treats like lollies, frappuccinos, ice cream and soft drinks. If you drink a sugary soft drink every day, try having one every other day, then once a week, then not at all.
