Last night my husband was giving me a hard time for all the sugar we've supposedly been consuming, mostly because I bake so much and we usually have something sweet for dessert after dinner (even if it's just one small piece of dark chocolate or home-canned fruit). The thing is, I always reduce the sugar (unless it's a layer cake, cupcakes, or cookies for special occasions), and I totally disagreed with him. Just because I prepare so much of our food, we are more aware of what goes into it. I know better than to argue with him, however, and started doing a little research to prove him wrong!
Yesterday I made some apple cinnamon scones for breakfast. Scones are great because they have at least half the sugar of muffins, yet you're not expecting them to be nearly as sweet. I made them bigger than usual, getting 8 in the batch, but I only ate one. The recipe called for 1/4 cup of sugar (I used a trace less, but we'll figure out the grams based on what should have been used).
There are 4.2 grams of sugar in one teaspoon. Three teaspoons in one tablespoon, 4 tablespoons in 1/4 cup. That means the recipe had 50.4 grams of added sugar (I didn't figure out what the dried apple and other ingredients would add), which amounts to 6.3 grams in one scone. What does that mean, exactly? Well, an average bowl of cereal has about 8 grams of sugar (Apple Jacks, Captain Crunch, and others have considerably MORE). No one ever eats the serving size; usually we all consume about twice what's recommended. So when you eat a bowl of cereal you're eating refined, processed food that may or may not be whole grain, and are eating at least 16 grams of sugar! Or you can have one whole grain, low fat scone with less than half that amount and feel full longer. My guy was intrigued when I shared this with him, but of course I had to take things a step further....
We don't drink soda anymore, unless it's a dire caffeine emergency or a very special treat. I have changed my views to look at those cans as liquid sugar (not to mention that the most common brands are high fructose corn syrup and not sugar, but we'll leave that alone for now). Many people have written about how many grams are in Coke or Pepsi and their teaspoon equivalents. In a 12 ounce Coke Classic, for example, there are 40 grams of sugar. That's almost 10 teaspoons of sugar! OK, that doesn't seem so bad. What if I broke it down even more and told you that's almost 1/4 cup?! Could you sit at the table and eat 1/4 cup of sugar (or more) straight? Mountain Dew has 46 grams, and please keep in mind that most people don't drink a 12 ounce can these days. They're consuming at least 20 ounce bottles or 32 ounce cups from a convenience store! Now there's a lot of sugar, especially when you add in everything else in their diet for that particular day!
I think my husband was concerned because he had a visual on exactly how much sugar I was pouring in the bowl. But what about all the unseen sweeteners that we consume without even realizing it? I wonder what would happen if food companies and beverage distribution centers changed the grams of sugar on the packages to teaspoons (or fractions of cups, like 1/4 cup in soda). Would that make people stop and think at least for a moment?
Regardless, I feel confident that my family regulates their sugar intake better than most Americans. Yes, I do bake a LOT, but by being conscious of what's going into the recipe we can control our levels of consumption and, hopefully, limit our risks of developing any future dietary related disease (age onset diabetes specifically, which does run in my family). That said, we will be skipping dessert tonight in preparation for a Mother's Day treat (if I get around to it and don't feel lazy tomorrow!).
No comments:
Post a Comment