Maybe it was the recession or maybe the public started listening to the health professionals’ pleas, but either way, added sugar consumption has actually decreased in the United States.
Research has been continually held to track the added sugar consumption in this country. These stats refer to extra sugar used to sweeten foods, not naturally occurring sugars like fructose in fruit. One of the biggest culprits of added sugar consumption is found in soda. The quarter drop in sugar consumption was due majorly to the decrease in soda consumption.
The experts believe that the initiatives to remove sodas and sweetened drinks from schools had a large effect on the numbers. Also, the multiple campaigns to make consumers aware of the extreme amounts of sugar in small amounts of soda are believed to have been effective.
The study also leads the experts to believe that people were simply not able to afford as many calories as they were in previous years due to the economy. Hopefully, as the recession ends, this will be one number that will stay low and not increase.
While the overall sugar consumption number decreased, it’s important to note how the sales of energy drinks increased during the study.
And in the same vein, while it’s a good thing that the overall number dropped, health experts still say it’s not good enough. The amount of sugar that most are consuming is nearly 15% of our diets. And furthermore, the study may be deceiving as it did not include fruit juice or juice concentrate as food and drink sweeteners. These items contain high amounts of sugar and are used in many products.
It’s clear that there are still many hurdles to jump before the country can truly claim victory over added sugar consumption. However, as every other number regarding our terrible health seems to climb, it is nice to see a decrease, even if it is a small one.
Via: Yahoo! News
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