The link(s) between Sugar & Sweeteners

Sugar is bad for you! That’s the top news of many blogs and dieticians and “wanna be slim” enthusiasts – The Guardian has a whole section devoted to stories related to sugar and it’s effect on the population. There’s no argument here, it is indeed bad for us due to the number of products that pile it in – check out the BBC story How much sugar is hiding in your food?.

The temptation of sugar

With sugar being almost impossible to avoid unless you are a home cook fanatic it’ll be there in some degree in nearly every meal, snack and drink. NHS looks at how sugar in our diet effects our health? and Healthline’s blog post on 11 reason why too much sugar is bad for you and everything from social sites to next door neighbours daughter is now an expert on it and like Time magazines article Sugar is definitely toxic it is definitely the number one villain in the world of food and drink.

Some say the sweetest things

The world of marketing has been listening and diet drinks, sugar free sweets, low sugar meals, 50% less sugar sauces etc… etc… is quickly becoming prominent in our stores. So it’s bad for you right? So, this must be good! Remember though, they must sweeten it somehow and what they use is aptly named sweeteners. The NHS educate us again on the truth about sweeteners and fitness magazine take us through the most popular sweeteners on Get Sweetener Savvy and it doesn’t take long to realise that they aren’t a miracle cure to the devil that is sugar. Which leaves us, and Thrillist.com asking which is worse: artificial sweeteners or sugar?.

So the shift moves back to negative about sweeteners with articles like those from the BBC asking are sweeteners really bad for you? and Harvard reviewing artificial sweeteners: sugar-free, but at what cost? when the whole reason we moved to them was to get away from sugar. So, may be the answer is we just eat too much?! Most of the advice comes down to one word “moderation”, and as we have found out todays society lacks that control in both ourselves and the companies that produce the food. Sugar is bad for us but instead of a solution we found a workaround which is also bad for us!

You are the answer

As much as we contribute to a society it is our own individual problem. Control what you eat, and others may follow…if they don’t at least you won’t be a victim to the sugar wars. As previously specified there is loads of advice out there from experts like the SugarScience website who breaks it down with How Much is Too Much? to blogs from chefs like Jamie Oliver who takes a look with a similarly titled How much sugar is too much? post.

In conclusion, be wary of what you eat as it is us who abuse it that makes it bad. Stick to natural unrefined where possible, choose a diet that isn’t focused on sweetness and stay away from fast food. You don’t have to be a health fanatic, you just need to be health conscious.

And another thing…

So we are the problem. We love it, it’s generally a natural ingredient and carbohydrates is our first source of energy. Sugar for those who work out at the right time can do wonders, just check out the Greatist blog post The one time it’s totally OK to eat a lot of sugar for some advice. Fact is everyone is different and on top of that we have different goals.