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9 Shocking Facts You Need to Know About Sugar
by Larry Schwartz
AlterNet
Sugar is sickening and killing us. Why can't we stop?
Sugar bashing is all the rage these days, and with good cause. Studies over many years have pointed to sugar as, at the very least, an accomplice, if not the perp, behind many of the health ills of modern civilization. Obesity and diabetes are the obvious candidates caused by over-consumption of the sweet stuff. The obesity epidemic has been written about exhaustively for years, and obesity’s good friend, Type 2 diabetes, has increased threefold in the past three decades, coinciding with the explosion of sugary products (both obvious and hidden). However, there are a cornucopia of other illnesses and conditions that have lesser-known connections to sugar. The list is long: high blood pressure, hypoglycemia, depression, acne, headaches, hardening of the arteries, fatigue, violent behavior, hyperactivity, aching extremities, and of course, tooth decay.
It seems we pay a heavy price for our sweet tooth. Not only do we eat a lot of sugar and make ourselves ill, but it has no nutritional value at all. No vitamins, no minerals, no enzymes, no fiber. (Honey and molasses lovers could make a teeny tiny case for their sweeteners, since they do have trace amounts of a few nutrients.)
Sugar tastes good. Humans crave sugar right down to their DNA. “Sugar is a deep, deep ancient craving,” Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University recently told Business Insider. Early humans looked for sweet fruits and vegetables because they contained the natural sugars that give us energy. Of course, cavemen were never tempted by Ring Dings or Snickers bars. How badly do we crave sugar? Here are (some of) the shocking statistics:
1. Americans consume, on average, 765 grams of sugar every five days. To put that in perspective, in 1822 we consumed on average 45 grams every five days. That is equal to one can of soda. Now we consume 17 times that, or the equivalent of 17 cans of soda.
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Source: http://www.riseearth.com/2014/08/9-shocking-facts-you-need-to-know-about.html
