American sugar consumption in the past decades has passed health standards. Looking at graphs of America’s sugar intake, the statistics show that sugar has been on an increasing trend since the 1820s. Solutions must be found before this huge problem expands into increased health problems. A solution would be to distribute awareness of the added sugars in your products.
Humans eat to survive, but sugar provides no necessary nutrients. Scientists call sugar an empty calorie. Eating too many calories can cause us to store that energy into fat. The goal of eating is only to eat a certain amount of calories, as too much could cause us to become overweight. Calories are not all equal; some provide nutrients, for example, apples or oranges, while sugar offers nothing. Eating sugar gives us filler calories, so we gain weight and skip out on nutritious foods. Not only is sugar a filler, but sugar causes many heart problems. Harvard University found that increased sugar intake causes more chances of heart failure. Sugar can lead to other health issues like high blood pressure, inflammation, diabetes, and fatty liver disease, to name a few.
A solution found could be artificial sugars. The National Library of Medicine presents statistics showing that artificial sweeteners give an excellent substitute with health benefits. Their studies show that it can lower calories compared to sugar and doesn’t affect glucose levels in our blood, and many experts say that this could be our solution. Already, many places have artificial sweeteners. Only the consumer needs to make the switch. Even with all these benefits, artificial sweeteners for many, including me, don’t taste good. Though it might be healthier to create a global switch, there has to be less transition move as sweeteners are not close to tasting like sugar. For the people who like sweeteners, this solution is for you but not for me.
Based on studies, the best solution is to gain an understanding of how much sugar products contain. Again, Harvard University states that knowing food labels helps determine how much sugar to eat. Many Americans have not realized how much sugar there is in all our foods. For example, one can of soda is already 76 percent of the sugar you should eat. When I learned this, I immediately quit sugar, as many people can agree that sugar is not worth those costs. Interestingly, added sugar on nutrient labels was added in CDC 2020. This recent change allows many people not to check how much sugar their products have.
Sugar, though it has been increasing, America has been making strides to help. With the introduction of artificial sweeteners and added sugars now listed on labels, we can lower our sugar intake more than ever. Remember to check your sugar facts before consuming something. Trust me, it makes a difference.
