Читать книгу Low-Carb Diet For Dummies - Katherine B. Chauncey - Страница 35

Most of the increase in sugar in the American diet has come from added sugars. Added sugars are sugars and syrups added to foods in processing or preparation, not the naturally occurring sugars in foods like fructose in fruit or lactose in milk. Sugar (including sucrose, corn sweeteners, honey, maple syrup, and molasses) is everywhere in the foods people eat — and it’s often hidden. Sugar is the number-one food additive and turns up in some unlikely places like pizza, bread, hot dogs, boxed mixed rice, soup, crackers, spaghetti sauce, lunchmeat, canned vegetables, fruit drinks, flavored yogurt, ketchup, salad dressings, mayonnaise, and some peanut butter.

The number-one food source containing added sugar consumed in the United States is sugar-sweetened beverages and soft drinks. In fact, sweetened beverages provide 47 percent of the refined and added sugars in the American food supply. More than 50 percent of American adults, 65 percent of teenage girls, and 74 percent of teenage boys consume soft drinks daily, most of which are sugar-sweetened. Liquid calories are strictly additive to the diet and add nothing nutritionally. Consuming a lot of foods high in added sugars, especially soft drinks, is of concern especially in children, teenagers, and women because, when people are drinking soft drinks, they’re not drinking as much water and other more nutritious foods like dairy and dairy alternatives. See Chapter 7 for more on dairy foods.