Sugar is playing hide and seek with you. You'd think it would be pretty easy for you to win, considering all the sugar in sodas, ice cream, candy, and big white bags labeled sugar. People get about half of their added sugars from those drinks and treats, so it might seem like sugar is hiding in plain sight, but like someone in the witness protection program, the other half is hidden in places you'd least suspect. Check the ingredients on ketchup, bologna, spaghetti sauce, soy milk, sports drinks, fish sticks, and peanut butter. You'll find sugar hiding in most of those products. In fact, you'll find added sugars in three-quarters of the more than 600,000 items available in grocery stores. But how is sugar hiding? Can't you just look on food labels? It's not that easy. Just like your friend Robert might go by Bob, Robby, Rob, Bobby, or Roberto, added sugar has a lot of aliases. And by a lot, we don't mean five or six, try fifty-six. There's brown rice syrup, barley malt, demerara, Florida Crystals, muscovado, and, of course, high fructose corn syrup, sometimes called HFCS, or corn sugar. Even sugar's tricky nicknames have nicknames. Grape or apple concentrate has the same effects on your body as its 55 sugary twins. And even though organic evaporated cane juice sounds healthy, when you evaporate it, you get sugar! Chemically speaking, it's all the same. And even trickier, when multiple added types of sugars are used in one type of product, they get buried down in a long list of ingredients, so the sugar content might appear to be okay, but when you add them all together, sugar can be the single biggest ingredient. Currently, the FDA doesn't suggest a recommended daily limit for sugar, so it's hard to tell if this 65 grams in a bottle of soda is a little or a lot. But the World Health Organization recommends limiting sugar to just 5% of your total calories, or about 25 grams per day. So, 65 grams is well over twice that amount. But just what is sugar? What's the difference between glucose and fructose? Well, both are carbohydrates with the same chemical composition of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. But they have very different structures and behave quite differently in our bodies. Glucose is the best source of energy for nearly all organisms on Earth. It can be metabolized by all organs in the body. Fructose, on the other hand, is metabolized primarily in the liver, and when your liver gets overloaded with sweet, sweet fructose, the excess is metabolized to fat. Fresh fruits actually contain fructose, but it's naturally occurring and doesn't cause an overload because the fiber in fruit slows its absorption. This gives your liver the time it needs to do its job. It's sugar that makes cookies chewy and candy crunchy. It even turns bread crust a beautiful, golden brown. It's also a great preservative; it doesn't spoil or evaporate, so the foods it's added to are easier to store and ship long distances and tend to be cheaper. That's why sugar is hiding everywhere. Actually, it might be easier to list the foods that added sugar isn't hiding in, things like: vegetables, eggs, meats, fish, fruit, raw nuts, even your kitchen sink. Simply choosing water over soda, juices, and sports drinks is a great way to avoid hidden added sugar. At the very least, try to pay attention to food labels, so you can keep your sugar intake at a healthy level. Because in this game of hide and seek, every time you don't find added sugar, you win!
糖正和你玩捉迷藏 你或許以為你可以輕易獲勝 想想所有存在於 汽水、冰淇淋、糖果 以及標示「糖」的白色大袋子 人們的糖份攝取量大約只有一半 來自那些飲料和零食的添加 所以糖分似乎隱藏在 我們看不見的地方 但就像證人保護計畫裡的證人那樣 另一半的添加糖是躲藏在 你最不會起疑的地方 看看這些食物的成分吧 ── 番茄醬、波隆那香腸、 義大利麵醬、豆漿、運動飲料、 炸魚塊和花生醬 你會發現它躲藏在大部分這些食品裡 事實上,你會發現 在雜貨店裡買得到的食品 60 多萬品項中就有 3/4 含有添加糖 但糖是如何躲藏呢? 你不能就從食品標示中看出來嗎? 這可沒那麼簡單 就像你的朋友羅伯 可能叫做鮑伯、羅比、羅勃、鮑比或羅伯特 添加糖有很多的別名 所謂很多,不是只有 5 個或 6 個 試想是 56 個 有糙米麥芽糖漿、大麥麥芽糖漿、 德麥拉拉蔗糖、佛羅里達水晶蔗糖、粗糖 當然還有有時被稱為 「HFCS」 的 高果糖糖漿或玉米糖 甚至糖狡猾的別名也有別名啊 濃縮葡萄汁或蘋果汁對身體效用一樣 是 55 種糖類中的一對雙胞胎 雖然蒸發濃縮的有機蔗糖聽起來很健康 但當你透過蒸發濃縮 得到的就是糖! 在化學上那全都一樣 然而更狡詐的是 當使用多種不同型態的添加糖 在同一產品上 它們就被掩沒在一長串的成份裡 如此一來,糖類含量看起來就還好 但當你把它們全加在一起 糖就是單一最大量的成分 目前美國食品及藥物管理局 並無建議糖份的每日最高攝取量 因此很難判定一瓶汽水含 65 克的糖 是多還是少 但是世界衛生組織建議 糖份應限制在你所攝取總熱量的約 5% 或每日 25 公克左右 所以 65 克的糖是 遠遠超過建議量的兩倍 但糖究竟是什麼呢? 葡萄糖和果糖有什麼差別呢? 兩者都是碳水化合物 含有碳、氫、氧相同的化學成份 含有碳、氫、氧相同的化學成份 只是它們的結構非常不一樣 且對我們身體的作用也相當不同 葡萄糖對於地球上 將近全數的生物而言 是能量的最佳來源 它可以被身體所有的器官代謝 而果糖呢 主要是在肝臟裡代謝 然而當你的肝臟負載了 過多的很甜的果糖 然而當你的肝臟負載了 過多的很甜的果糖 過量的部份就被轉換成脂肪 新鮮水果的確含有果糖 但那是天然的 並不會導致攝取過量 因為水果的纖維會延緩吸收 如此一來就給了你的肝臟 需要的時間去做工 如此一來就給了你的肝臟 需要的時間去做工 糖讓餅乾吃起來有嚼勁 讓糖果咬起來香脆 它甚至讓麵包皮變成美麗的金黃色 它同時也是絕佳的防腐劑 它不會腐敗或蒸發 所以那些含有添加糖的食物 較易於保存與長距離運送 且價格往往較低廉 那就是糖份四處躲藏的原因 事實上,要列出不含添加糖的食物 應該還比較簡單 例如︰蔬菜、蛋、肉、 魚、水果、未加工的堅果 甚至你廚房的水槽 只要選擇水而不是汽水、果汁和運動飲料 就是避免攝取那些 隱含添加糖的好方法 最起碼 試著去注意食品標示 藉此可以保持符合 健康標準的糖份攝取量 因為在這個捉迷藏遊戲中 每當你找到一樣不含添加糖的食物 你就贏了!