Attention sugar!

Added sugars

Added sugars are extra sugars in addition to naturally occurring sugars such as those found in grains, vegetables, fruits and dairy products. The food industry is responsible for these additives. The amount of sugar that the average Dutch person puts into their tea, coffee and yogurt themselves is dwarfed by the amount of sugars added to foods by the food industry. The main motive for the food industry to make foods sweeter is to increase sales.

According to the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the average Dutch person ingests about 120 grams of sugars daily. Of this, 40 grams are found naturally in the major raw materials from which our foods are made, such as grains, milk, vegetables and fruits. About 10 grams come from fruit juices and fruit concentrates. Most of it, about 70 grams, consists of added sugars.

Are added sugars unhealthy?

Sugars are definitely unhealthy. The only thing is that scientists cannot pinpoint exactly how unhealthy it is for the human body. About half assume that sugars are so unhealthy because they lead to a rapid rise in blood glucose levels. That explains why in large studies, people who ingest a lot of sugars are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than others. In addition, they see an increased risk of Alzheimer's and fatty liver. The other half of scientists find those studies inconclusive.

Both camps do agree that added sugars are fattening, and help cause type 2 diabetes and that sugars cause tooth decay.

The Netherlands Nutrition Center does not yet want to issue guidelines on the amount of added sugars in the diet, but it does urge consumers not to let that amount become too high. The World Health Organization (WHO) goes a step further and believes that a maximum of 10% of the calories we consume daily should come from added sugars. For the average Dutch person, that would amount to about 50 grams. With an intake of 80 grams, the average Dutch person is well above that. And actually, the WHO considers that 10% to be too high. People would be even healthier if their intake of added sugars fell below 5%, according to the WHO. Anyone who wants to adhere to the stricter standard should not exceed 25 grams.

Why is this coming out so late?

Much earlier, food scientists warned of the risks of a diet with too many sugars. For example, the British John Yudkin wrote, "Pure, White and Deadly: The Problem of Sugar" (1972). Little else was paid to it during this period. More attention was focused on the risks of eating too much fat. This was mainly because the American sugar industry, influenced the scientific picture by funding studies showing that not sugar, but especially fat was unhealthy. The way at least the U.S. sugar industry operated is reminiscent of the way the tobacco industry managed for decades to cover up the fact that smoking is harmful. Scientists, governments and health organizations have become aware of this and have adjusted their views on sugars.

According to the Corporate Europe Observatory, an organization that studies how companies try to influence EU policy, the European sugar industry spends €21 million a year on lobbying. Most likely, the industry wants to prevent Brussels from trying to make products with added sugars more expensive through additional taxes, so that Europeans will eat less of them.

What are added sugars in?

According to Wageningen researchers, more than half of all foods contain added sugars. According to the RIVM, most of the added sugars come from three types of foods:

• dairy drinks, soft drinks and juices,
• pastries and cookies,
• candy and sweet spreads, such as jam and sprinkles.

Drinks contain by far the most sugars. This is partly because liquid foods do not provide satiety. Another issue is that the food industry has marketed various drinks with a healthy image so that consumers do not realize that they contain (too) many sugars, such as various types of drinking yogurt, juice drinks, sports drinks and energy drinks.

How do you reduce your intake of added sugars?

• Stop sugar in coffee or tea. As a start, of course, you can stop sugar in your coffee or tea. This is then a small step in the right direction. Since a scoop of sugar weighs about 2 grams, the contribution is not very large. Replace soda, fruit juice, etc. with water, possibly adding some mint, lime or cucumber for some extra flavor.
• Replace dairy drinks and desserts with added sugars with traditional milk and buttermilk. The same goes for dairy products like fruit yogurt and fruit cottage cheese. Replacing those products with plain yogurt or plain cottage cheese yields gains.
• Reduce eating cookies and sweets. It is difficult to find a healthy substitute for these. It is obvious that cookies and candy contain a lot of sugars. It is often impossible to find a substitute for them.
• Read the labels of the foods you buy. The food industry does not make this easy, because finding out if and how much added sugars a food contains is sometimes tricky. Still, it can pay off. Some meats, sauces and even some canned vegetables may have a lot of added sugars.

Three rules of thumb for recognizing sugar on labels:

• All words ending in 'ose' (glucose, fructose, dextrose, etc.)
• All words containing "syrup," "honey" or "nectar.
• And, of course, anything ending in "sugar" (milk sugar, cane sugar, brown sugar). On this site you will find a list of no fewer than 77 synonyms for sugar.

Source: Consumers Union / mens-en-gezondheid.infonu.nl