Effects of high sugar intake

In the previous post I wrote about what calories look like and what is required for your day.

In this post I will go a little into what excess sugar intake can do for your health.

The first point to make is that this is on excess sugar.  That is, eating beyond moderation or balance for your lifestyle and activity.  It is also about the consumption of sugar rather than the consumption of calories.  Remember, calories are in different forms in different foods, so calories are more than just sugar.

Everyone associates lots of sugar intake with obesity.  What is less understood is the actual contributions of sugar intake on health.  If few experts can agree beyond "it makes you fat" then it is hard to accurately state the side effects.  This is partly why so many government health agencies and other independent research is still reviewing the data.  However there are numerous studies on sugar intake and the results.  The only question is whether the effect is directly attributable to sugar intake or partly attributable with other factors also involved.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is currently reviewing its sugar intake guideline.  This means that it is looking at the emerging data to provide a global recommendation for sugar intake.  Its current guideline is from 2002.  The draft is available from their website for viewing. (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2014/consultation-sugar-guideline/en/).  Whilst the draft guideline advocates less than 10% of  total energy intake per day be by sugar (ie: 50g or 12 teaspoons), with a statement that achieving 5% offers additional health benefits.  The draft guideline was formulated based on analyses of all published scientific studies on the consumption of sugars and how that relates to excess weight gain and tooth decay in adults and children.

So, 12 teaspoons a day doesn't sound too bad.  I know I don't add that much when I think about what I eat and drink during the day. But.....

The hard thing is that all of us think only of the sugars we see.  The added sugar from a sugar container.  The sachet with the coffee.  One of the key findings that are commonly understood is the amount of hidden sugars - those sugars added to processed foods.  These are unseen and therefore hard for us to even recognise as part of our daily sugar intake. Much of the sugars consumed today are “hidden” in processed foods that are not usually seen as sweets. For example, 1 tablespoon of ketchup contains around 4 grams (around 1 teaspoon) of sugars. A single can of sugar-sweetened soda contains up to 40 grams (around 10 teaspoons) of sugar.

 An ABC Catalyst science program "Is Sugar Making Us Sick" reviewed sugar (http://www.abc.net.au/health/features/stories/2015/01/08/4159335.htm).  In it is some interesting data collated and reviewed.  However it still notes that the scientific conclusion is not clear.  Some of the studies showed:

• In a study of more than 90,000 women, those who had one or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks a day were twice as likely to have developed type 2 diabetes during the study compared with those who did not consume sweetened drinks. But many of these women had also gained weight.

• For every additional 150 calories of sugar per person per day, the prevalence of diabetes in the population rose by 1 per cent, even after taking into account obesity, physical activity, and other types of calories.

•  A recent US paper, based on a study that followed a large number of adults for over 14 years, found that consuming added sugars significantly increased the risk of death from heart disease.  Over the course of the study, participants who consumed 25 per cent or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those whose diets included less than 10 per cent added sugar.

•  Other research showed that women with diets that had a high glycemic load (increased blood glucose associated with sugar intake) had an increased risk of coronary heart disease, with those in the highest bracket of consumption having a more than two-fold increased risk over 10 years of follow-up.

•  And a study that followed 40,000 men for two decades found that those who had one can of sugary drink per day had a 20 per cent higher risk of having a heart attack or dying from a heart attack than men who rarely consumed sugary drinks.

But these studies alone aren't enough to prove that sugar causes heart disease, as it's not clear that the link is directly attributable to sugar and not another confounding factor.  That is, is sugar the only contributor to this effect or is there other contributors or common factors.  Eg: are people who are more likely to eat more sugar also less likely to perform regular exercise, which is known to have a positive effect on heart disease.  Or are there other factors that may lead to increased heart disease such as smoking.  The ongoing reviews of the data are required to provide that clear link.  However, even with this finding as it is, the evidence would indicate enough basis to examine your sugar intake and reduce.

But how to review your intake?  All products bought should have ingredients and nutrition labels.
With the ingredients label, the ingredients are all in volume order - from the most to the least.  So if a product such as tomato sauce (ketchup) has sugar before tomatoes, it means there is more sugar in the sauce than tomatoes.  So be guided by the location of sugar in the ingredients.

One recent action in Australia has been to also provide a star rating guide to food to show the actual nutritional quality of a product - across energy, fat, sugar and salt.  This provides an easy way to judge a product.  Some of the largest cereal manufacturers are yet to use it, and a recent review shows why.
(http://ow.ly/KqqkI) The manufacturers talk about the benefits of their product such as "contains wholegrains" and "no artificial flavours" but play down the contribution of sugars in the same product.  The star rating system quicly shows the actual benefits so it can be simply understood and compared.

The cereals with the most sugar were Kellogg’s Frosties (41.3g per 100g), Kellogg’s Froot Loops (38g) and Kellogg’s Coco Pops (36.5g) – all of which are heavily promoted to children.  So this means that for all these cereals, out of every 3 mouthfuls, you are eating more than 1 mouthful of sugar.  Try for yourself to review the sugar content of cereals and see what they contain. Not all cereals are the same!

A star rating system would be very useful in other countries as it is a simple but effective communication tool, especially where nutrition aspects is less discussed in the media and classroom.  And the benefits will be large.  Western countries are already counting the costs of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other diseases.  How well can a country like the Philippines handle this epidemic?  Prevention, education and reduction are better to be implemented now to reduce the long term effects and provide positive benefits for life.

An insight into how the fast food industry manipulates food and us

How many calories do you need each day?  The answer is "it depends on what you are doing".  A person working hard doing manual labour expends more than someone sitting at a desk all day.  So the calories in needs to be balanced with how much you burn up, unless you are trying to lose or gain weight.  The standard applied is that the average human needs to consume approximately 2000 calories per day.  Previously I have shared about what a calorie is and how calories are used to different efficiencies by the human body (ref http://bellasbitesph.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-wrap-catchup-from-world-of-science.html).  The problem is that the food industry can only grow in limited ways - either they sell the products to more people, or people need to eat more.  The ability to sell to more people is limited by many factors - how much time we have to eat, how much money we have to spend on eating, and the ability of manufacturers to get into new markets/countries and change peoples eating traditions.  So to sell to more people is the hard and slow road to growth.  How about making the same people who are already used to eating the products just eat more?  This is exactly the question food manufacturers invested time and money into answering.

Dr Kessler, the former head of the US Food and Drug administration wanted to share his insights on the growth of overeating.  As a former pediatrician, lawyer and head of the prime US body across food, he is well credentialed and has insight that is useful to understand.


In the first part of the article, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/10/09/3604793.htm, Dr Karl breaks down the main points of Dr Kessler's book "The End of Overeating".  In this we learn how the food industry studied what drives our eating desires and how to create food that panders to this desire. In the second article, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/10/16/3608823.htm, the reasons why poor quality fast food is often chosen over more nutritious and better for you natural foods.   Sugars and fats were rarer in the diet for many, many years of our human development.  So any sweet or fatty food was a pleasurable reward for the body.  Eaten in small amounts, no damage is done.  For example, the food industry has created foods to reduce time spent chewing, which means that you get this pleasurable reward quicker. It also means that you can eat more in the same time.  With the food being higher in calories, you are consuming more.  And being an emotionally linked reward, your brain overrules you stomach.  This is why the food industry uses packaging and advertising that triggers emotional reactions.The problem with this type of food is that it doesn't actually satisfy your hunger.  So the only thing to do is to eat more often, and the profits of the big food industry will grow along with our waistlines.  The other problem is that our tastes get conditioned to the higher levels of salt, fat and sugar and therefore to get a reward, more is needed.

So what to do?  Some simple ideas:
1) Realising what is going on. - understand the food you are eating and ensure you are eating a diet that contains less processed ingredients, grains, fruit and vegetables.
2) Let sweets and fats be a reward but eaten in moderation.
3) Eat foods that will satisfy your hunger and let your brain trigger the natural response to stop eating when full, which will also be when you have the amount of calories your body actually needs.
4) Continue to do exercise.
5) As always, too much of anything is never a good balance.

To help illustrate what 2000 calories looks like, the New York Times recently put out this article, which helps show some common US chain foods -"What 2000 calories looks like at large chains". The additional thing to keep in mind is the earlier article about how calories in different types of food are digested and used by the body.  It is still the same message - a calorie in a slow digested, unprocessed food source will be better for the body than a calorie in a soft drink.

In the next piece I will explore more about the way in which calories affect us.  My hope  is that these easy to read articles help us become better informed to make wise food and health choices.  Because...don't you deserve better information to make your own choices.

And now a word about our suppliers...

At Bella's Bites, we take both great care as well as pride in our selection of suppliers and the products we use.  So what is important to us?  One word - you.  At Bella's we have a simple philosophy.  We won't serve you what we wouldn't serve ourselves.  We won't use ingredients for you that we would be reluctant to use for ourselves. 

But what does that mean in reality?  When we choose ingredients, we look for quality, food safety and source. 

Source is simple - where the ingredient meets our quality and food safety criteria, we will choose local products to help support the Philippine farmers and economy.  It also means that the produce is the most fresh, as it is bought at the closest time to picking in the case of fruit and vegetables. 

Food safety - where the product is made and comes from is weighed by ensuring the location has strong food safety and hygiene standards.  For grown products, the quality of the soil and use of pesticides is also of utmost importance. 

And of course the quality of the product is important - great tasting food comes from great quality ingredients. 

Below are some examples of our purchasing policy as the best ways of explaining it in practice.

At Bella's we choose Harvey Fresh milk whenever we can get it.  And that sometimes means much traveling across Cebu to find suppliers! Why not local?  The local dairy industry in the Philippines is quite small and the availability of fresh milk hard to come by.  Especially for our coffee and milk shakes, the use of good quality, consistent fat content milk is important.  In our testing, Harvey Fresh milk provides a consistently great frothing quality and tastes great.  It is made with Australian milk and imported directly, so Australia's very high standards of food safety and hygiene are not compromised as no reprocessing in other countries occurs.  Harvey Fresh is made with dairy cows that are free range on Australian grasses on Australian soils.  So there is no risk of heavy metals and pesticides entering the food chain (*Australian farmers use pesticides but their use is monitored by the government food authorities and animals that may be at risk of grazing on treated areas are restricted from entering the food supply).  More information is available at Harvey Fresh's website.

At Bella's we also choose to use San Remo pasta.  San Remo is a company that was founded by an Italian in the South Australian state more than 75 years ago and has prospered ever since, making quality durum wheat pasta.  We chose San Remo after trying many different pasta manufacturers and found their product has a great taste and a consistent texture.  In fact, we have had some Italians comment on the great taste of our pasta. More information  is available at San Remo's website.

We use a lot of citrus at Bella's, from our juices and our ice crushes to our cooking.  We purchase our citrus from countries that have reliable supply of quality product.  These include Australia, USA and South Africa.  The citrus production in the Philippines is small and therefore we are limited in being able to purchase from the local product.  However we deliberately choose as much of our fruit and vegetables to be as local as possible.

We also use green apples in our drinks and our yummy moist apple cake.  The best apples for cooking are Granny Smith apples, which happened to be created just a short distance from where this author grew up!  Where possible we use our fruit and vegetables from countries such as the Philippines, Australia, USA, and European countries.  We deliberately avoid purchasing from countries where soil pollution and lack of published accountability for pesticide and fertiliser use is a factor.  Whilst these may produce nice looking food that is quickly grown, the result though is tasteless fruit that may be harmful to our health, and that isn't what we want.

We have to use some products that are processed.  So what are we thinking when we choose one product over another?  We look into their ingredients to see that there is NO MSG used and look to ensure content is not driven by sugars and fats and artificial colours and flavours.  But where possible, we choose to make our products from the base ingredients for the simple reason that this is the easiest way to ensure a quality meal for you.  So this means we make our own stocks and our own salad dressings.

Sometimes these factors means we pay more for our produce and ingredients and we do our best to ensure that you have don't have to make a choice between great quality and cost.  Bella's motto is simple - "because...don't you deserve better?".   And the end result?  A tasty, quality meal for you to enjoy and relax knowing that we are taking care of you.

So there is only one thing you need to do - come in and enjoy our great tasting food and drinks.

*** Note that no manufacturer asked us to reference us for this article and none provide any incentive to use their products.