Tag Archives: sugar

Cows Being Fed Gummy Worms: The Health Consequences

Is there any food match more appropriate than sprinkles atop an ice cream sundae? Maybe, but none as colorful. Below the sprinkles is the obligatory mound of whipped cream, which stands tall above two scoops of ice cream. It’s expected that this dairy dessert be decorated with sprinkles and cherries and maybe even gummy worms, but would you ever think of those ingredients as feed for cattle?

It’s been reported that, in light of the worst corn harvest in six years (per the USDA), that many cattle farmers are turning to candy and other junk food to feed their cows. Yes, one penny-pinched farmer in Indiana, trying to feed 450 dairy cows on a budget, got a good deal on ice cream sprinkles. He told the Orlando Sentinel that it was a “pretty colorful load,” and in an effort to keep down costs.

With less corn feed available, a standard for large cattle operations, the price is becoming out of reach for some farmers. In addition to ice cream sprinkles as part of the new cattle diet, other farmers are finding bargains on junk food snacks like cookies, gummy worms, marshmallows, fruit loops, orange peels, dried fruit, and even Mexican food.

Orville Miller, a dairy farmer in South Central Kansas, told KWCH that he uses scraps from a local chocolate factory and Mexican food scraps from another local factory to supplement his cows’ diet at a savings of almost 50 cents per cow per day.

“It’s a way of recycling,” he said, as he feeds his cows chocolate pieces, soft taco shells and refried beans. “It’s high fat, high energy feed,” Orville says, which is necessary for his cows to produce hundreds of pounds of milk a day. (more…)

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Natalie K

Sweet News about Sugar: It’s Not Harmful in Moderation

By Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D., Best Life lead nutritionist

Have a sweet tooth? Then you’ll love to sink it into this bit of good news: Sugar, in moderation, doesn’t seem to be harmful. If you’re like me, you’re breathing a giant sigh of relief—after all, some of the joy would drain from my life if sugar left it!

How much can you get away with? Before I give you a number to shoot for, you need to learn two sugar lessons. The first is what “sugar” really is: sweet-tasting carbohydrates that contain calories (that excludes artificial sweeteners). Some common examples are sucrose, the white granules you stir into coffee; high fructose corn syrup, which has a similar chemical makeup as sucrose; fructose and glucose in foods like fruit and in honey; and lactose, the sugar in milk.

Next, you have to learn to determine if a sugar is added or naturally occurring. Naturally occurring sugars, like those found in fruit, milk and yogurt, are generally not a problem (unless you have diabetes or pre-diabetes). The vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in these foods more than make up for any ill effects of the sugar.

Added sugar, on the other hand, is a big problem for most of us. That’s because added sugar is “empty calories,” meaning it contains plenty of calories but no nutrients. In excess, it can make you fat and increase your risk for metabolic syndrome, a condition that sets you up for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. It might even make you stupid, as I recently reported. And for some people, cookies, candy and other sweets are addictive. (more…)

Posted on September 19, 2023 by BestLifeDiet

Sugary Drinks Still Widely Available in Schools

It seems for every stride forward we make in improving our children’s diets, we manage to take one step back as well.

It’s been wonderful seeing a decline in the availability of soda in our schools. It has no place there and offers no nutritional value to students anyways. However, while sodas are on the decline, children still have easy access to other high-calorie, sugary beverages, which often do just as much damage as that bottle of Pepsi or Coke.

The number of students that can buy soda at school has dropped by nearly 50 percent since 2006. But according to July’s issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one-third of U.S. elementary students can still buy sugary drinks.

As reported by Reuters earlier this week, findings from a University of Michigan study determined that sports drinks were the most common sugary drinks found in middle schools and high schools.

So it seems our youngest students are still being offered some sort of juice drinks and the upper level students are being offered sports drinks, all of which are very high in calories and loaded with sugar. The juice drinks serve very little purpose in a person’s diet, especially if they’re not 100 percent juice. In addition, sports drinks are not recommended for anyone unless they are doing intense exercise. (more…)

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Lacy

Petition the FDA to Add Sugar in Teaspoons to Nutrition Labels

Be honest, do you read nutrition labels? I have to admit I read them more and more in a quest for better health. I try to pay attention to sodium, sugar, fat and calories and I’m especially focused on the ingredient list. These labels hold the key to the ingredients within the foods we eat and are often more telling of the quality of food than the often confusing nutrition facts.

As Americans we don’t follow the metric system, so understanding the number of grams of various elements in our food can prove difficult; for some it can make the information downright useless. To make that label even more relevant, there is a petition circulating at Change.org requesting that the FDA add the number of teaspoons of sugar to the “per serving” section on nutrition labels. They currently have 117 of 18,000 desired signatures.

Implementing this idea can help greatly with understanding just how much sugar is in the foods you are considering. Added sugar is one of many catalysts in the current levels of obesity we see throughout the country.

To see how helpful this change might be, I asked our resident registered dietician Mary Hartley if reflecting sugar measurements in teaspoons would be beneficial. “Yes it would be helpful if added sugar were separated from naturally occurring sugars in fruit, milk and some vegetables,” Mary said. When asked if seeing the sugar content in grams can make a difference in curbing obesity, Mary stated, “Obesity is a multifaceted, complex problem. I would not expect any single intervention to make a big difference, although many small actions do add up. It certainly wouldn’t hurt.” (more…)

Posted on August 6, 2023 by Descygna

Cutting Back on Sugar Isn’t a Guarantee for Weight Loss

Between 2001 to 2004, according a study done by the American Heart Association (AHA), Americans on average were consuming 22.2 teaspoons of sugar per day, that is equivalent to 355 calories a day. Over one year that is equal to 37 pounds!

Experts say the consumption of sugar is a large contributor to the obesity epidemic and the AHA recommends women consume only 100 calories of sugar a day (6 teaspoons) and men limit it to 150 calories (9 teaspoon).

In order to cut back on the sugar, it’s important for people to understand where they consume most of the sugar. The biggest sources are soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages.

A good tool to use when it comes to cutting down on sugar is to use alternative-sweeteners.

“Artificial sweeteners are very useful for people with diabetes and other disorders of glucose metabolism,” says DietsInReview.com’s resident dietician Mary Hartley, RD. “For others, they can be a waste of time or not. It depends on how committed an individual is to using artificial sweeteners as a tool.”

She agrees that non-nutritive sweeteners can be useful for limiting added sugars but this will not guarantee weight loss.

She explains further, “Obesity is much too complicated for such a simplistic solution. In fact, chronic ‘dieters’ are more likely to use artificial sweeteners and statistics show that most dieters regain lost weight.” (more…)

Posted on July 10, 2023 by Kristina

Our Brains Light Up at the Sight of Sugar

Not sure they needed to do brain scans to prove that seeing images of sugary treats makes us want them. Never-the-less the scientists did and they showed just how much we love our desserts and what power they hold over us.

According to Linda Carroll at MSNBC.com, the researchers had women look at images of sugary treats like cookies, cupcakes, and cake while being scanned. The brain scans showed that the regions of the brain that deal with hunger and reward lit up. This study had very similar findings as a previous study involving cocaine addicts. When the addicts were shown images of drug needles the same portion of the brain lit up. Wow, sugar and cocaine pack some serious power in our bodies. All of these findings were discussed at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society. (more…)

Posted on July 2, 2023 by Lacy

Fructose Makes Rats Dumber, Study Shows

It looks like the soft drink industry and other sugar-laden product companies are going to take another hit in the name of fructose.

A recent study on fructose’s effects on rats showed that when fed water laced with fructose for a period of six weeks, the rats’ performance in maze navigation was slower.

This experiment was conducted by researchers at UCLA, and the results concluded that the brain is responding to insulin from the fructose consumed by the rats. The senior author of the study is UCLA professor Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, and the findings were published in the Journal of Physiology.

Of the study, Gomez-Pinilla said, “Our study shows that a high fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body. We’re concerned about high-fructose corn syrup, which is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative.” Gomez-Pinilla specified that this study is not just about high-fructose corn syrup, though. He mentioned that all sugar, including table sugar, juices and any form of added sugar should be avoided. Studies like this have repeatedly shown that the sugar contributes to instances of obesity, diabetes and blood-fat disturbances in rodents. (more…)

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Descygna

Are Sugary Beverages the Cause of the American Obesity Epidemic?

With concern rising around our nation’s obesity epidemic, experts are frantically trying to determine what the specific causes are, and more importantly, what the solution is. Among a number of experts is Dr. Robert Lustig, the man who’s become the face of the ‘sugar is toxic’ movement.

Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, gained notoriety after posting his lecture titled ‘Sugar: The Bitter Truth‘ on YouTube in 2024, which has since gained more than 2.3 million hits.

Lustig believes sugar is the major cause of most of the health-related diseases Americans are facing today, including obesity and type 2 diabetes. And he thinks that 75% of these diseases are preventable if we’d just cut back on our sugar consumption.

According to a recent CNN report, the average American teenager consumes about 4 pounds of sugar a week – which translates to 200 pounds a year. And based on the figures of our nation’s health as a whole, the average adult isn’t far behind.

When Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked Dr. Lustig if sugar is just empty calories or if it’s more than that, Lustig responded saying everyone thinks obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little. But he disagrees, saying obesity is a marker for metabolic disfunction. And if you look at what we’re eating in America, it’s not any more fat – it’s sugar. (more…)

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Dana

Food Fight: Sugar vs. Artificial Sweeteners

About a year ago I was sitting in a coffee shop in Topeka, Kansas with my husband, eating a vegan oatmeal cookie and doing some reading online. One of the articles I came across was ‘Is Sugar Toxic?‘ by The New York Times. And by the time I finished the 6,000+ word story, I was deeply regretting that cookie.

The article discussed the research of Dr. Robert Lustig – a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California – who has deemed sugar as the major cause of most of the health-related diseases Americans are facing today like obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. And he believes 75% of these diseases are preventable if we’d just cut back on the sweet stuff.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently did a special on Dr. Lustig on 60 Minutes, and the story seemed to catch the attention of other media outlets. This has brought the ‘sugar is toxic’ discussion back full circle, forcing Americans once again to consider whether or not it’s their sugar habit that’s making them sick. (more…)

Posted on April 6, 2024 by Dana

Sugar is Not Food, it is a Highly Addictive Drug

By Samantha Childs for NutritiousAmerica.com

Please say the following out loud: “Hello my name is ________ (fill in your name), and I am an addict.”

Congratulations, you’ve done it! Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery. And you are a junkie to something far more deadly than drinking or even cigarettes.

Here are some clues:

  1. It’s most common form is as a white powder.
  2. In the 1300s it was recognized as a potent drug and handled under lock and key by apothecaries.
  3. It’s original name, bestowed by the French, was crack.

You guessed it. Sugar. Sugar is the crack of the masses. I learned this from famous psychotherapist Julia Ross at the 2024 Nutrition Conference held by The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Sugar as a drug? Yes. And not just that, it is a high calorie drug. (A double whammy.) (more…)

Posted on March 28, 2024 by Nutritious_America

Pepsi Next: Fewer Calories but Creates More Concern

Pepsi just officially released its newest beverage: Pepsi Next.

Pepsi says the new beverage has 60 percent less sugar and 60 percent fewer calories than regular Pepsi. But, in order to keep the sweetness but reduce the amount of sugar and calories, Pepsi Next features all of the sugar substitutes it has into one beverage. It combined high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, Sucralose and acesulfame potassium.

This is quite the sweetener combo and if you are like most, seeing this list may make you wonder what you’re going to be chugging. Even though Pepsi Next does contain a lot of artificial sweeteners, the fact that it is only half the calories of regular Pepsi could be a plus for those who want to reduce their sugar intake and cut calories to lose weight or maintain their weight.

Elisa Zied, MS, RD, CDN, and author of Nutrition at Your Fingertips said in an email, “If someone were to replace one full calorie soda for a Pepsi Next each day, he or she would save 60 calories—that’s 420 calories a week. They may not lose weight, but they’ll certainly save nutrient-poor sugar calories and perhaps leave more room in the diet for more healthful foods like a small piece of fruit.”

Here is some quick info on these artificial sweeteners included in the Pepsi Next that you may want to know about:

Aspartame, also found in Diet Pepsi, is one of the more controversial artificial sweeteners out there. The FDA has claimed its research has not shown any adverse health complications from aspartame. But according to MedicineNet.com, there is some evidence suggesting headaches, depression, increased hunger, and even cancer can be related to consuming aspartame.

Sucralose, also found in Pepsi One, is most well known for its claim to be made from sugar. It is usually  found in Splenda and is 600 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). It is claimed to have no calories by itself. According to Sucralose.org, it is not a natural product. The website claims it is made from a chemically modified sugar molecule. The FDA reviewed studies in human beings and animals. It determined there was no evidence of it causing cancer and posed no risk to human health. According to MedicineNet, the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for sucralose is set at 5 mg per kilogram of body weight per day. So if you weighed 200 pounds, your ADI would be 455 mg. According to Pepsi’s product information for every 12 ounces, there is approximately 14 mg of sucralose. (more…)

Posted on March 27, 2024 by Kristina