Sugar in Moderation?

If you are able to eat sugar in moderation, I would love to hear how you do it.

Most of the people that I have talked with tell me that moderating sugar consumption is nearly impossible. It's more practical to give it up completely than to try and ingest it in small doses. For many reasons. One of which is that it's in everything. Just because the ingredients on the packaged food product may not say, "sugar" does not mean that sugar is not in there. Products that tout themselves as health food, and yet use a sneaky word actually meaning sugar, are just deceiving their customers. Write to companies that are using this marketing tactic. Email them, call them, send them mail. Tell them you don't appreciate their tricky marketing. Ask them to use natural sweeteners. Here are a few examples of tricky gimmick words used to perpetuate the idea that sugar is not in the ingredients, when indeed it is.

List of ingredients meaning sugar: "Saccharose, Sucanat, Sugar, Granulated Sugar, Refined Sugar, Brown Sugar, Cane Juice, Evaporated Cane Juice, Evaporated Cane Sugar, Cane Sugar, Raw Cane Sugar, Demerera, Muscovado, Turbinado, Cane syrup, Beet syrup, Baker's Sugar, Bar Sugar, Barbados Sugar, Berry Sugar, Chinese Rock Sugar , Confectioners Sugar, Gemsugar, Polincillo, Rock sugar, Wasanbon" to name a few.
(This list was compiled by Methuselah on the great, "Pay Now Live Later" blog.)

Take charge of how much sugar to eat, if at all. I understand that for some of us, cutting down on something is easier than cutting it out completely. Some of you "avoid" as best you can, but don't get down on yourself when you have some. I guess I am an example of someone who takes things to extremes--with sugar for sure. Either give me two pints of ice cream, brownies and hot fudge or give me an apple. If I'm going to be bad, I make it count. If I'm going to be good, I make it holy. This extremism isn't exactly a healthy, balanced take on eating, I realize. Honestly, though, for those of you who balance your sugar consumption, how do you do it?

Are Cane Juice and Raw Sugar the Same as White Sugar?

I am again attempting to find out at which steps of the sugar refining process we get these products. Also, what is their nutritional value?

• Evaporated Cane Juice
• Cane Juice
  
• Organic Sugar
• Turbinado
• Raw Sugar
• Molasses

I posted something about this earlier in the year, but I want even more details, from more sources. The cold, hard facts. I can not get the best information from any source that is selling something. Unfortunately, I am having a difficult time finding this information elsewhere!

I have many people asking why I don't eat some of the above listed sugars. I do eat molasses. A naturopathic doctor once recommended that I eat one tablespoon of molasses a day. I was eating vegan then. I haven't touched the other sugars all year because I believe they are much more refined products of sugar cane/sugar beet than molasses. Molasses is full of iron and other vitamins and minerals. You really can't overeat the stuff--it's so strong! It makes a wonderful sweetener, especially in my favorite gingersnap cookies.

I think that the other sugars listed are advertising "gimmicks" to get us health-concious folks to think a product is okay. I really don't believe that there is a big difference between white table sugar and evaporated cane juice, cane juice, raw sugar and turbinado. If the differences are microscopic, then I think they hardly count. I think the differences should be as obvious as molasses compared to white table sugar. If there are "trace" amounts of nutrition in cane juice or turbinado, does that really make it healthy?

The research that I am looking for is harder to find than I thought. All I want is a chart that shows the sugar refining process, with these different sugars listed at the point at which they are a final product. Ideally, these different sugar products would then be charted according to their nutrition. Do these charts exist? I've looked on both sugar websites and "anti-sugar" websites.

Wikipedia apparently agrees with me, "Evaporated cane juice is used more widely across the globe and is gaining currency as a euphemism for refined white sugar." I think "euphemism" is a loose term, and definitely not a scientific term, but nevertheless...

I'm finding the same thing on most websites, "[Evaporated cane juice] may also be known by a variety of other names including dried cane juice, crystallized cane juice, milled cane sugar and direct consumption sugar."(1)

If you've heard of Sunspire Natural Chocolates, they also have something to say about raw sugar, "Raw sugar is coarse, tan to brown-colored sugar (sucrose) which results from the first processing of cane or beet sugar. True "raw sugar" cannot be sold in the USA because it contains impurities such as soil, mold yeast, bacteria, and wax. When further processed to remove the impurities it is sold as turbinado sugar."(2)

Here is an interesting perspective written by Nutritionist Vimlan VanDien, "One hundred grams of dried cane juice is pretty much the same thing as 100 grams of other sweeteners, no matter what you call it," says Vimlan VanDien, a nutritionist at the respected Bastyr University, in Seattle, Washington. "When people call these sugars something other than sugar, it's deceptive in a way if the market is uninformed. Because dehydrated cane juice is sugar. It simply sounds like a whole food."

VanDien feels that calling these sweeteners something other than what they are is a way that some consumers can sugarcoat their consciences too.

"To a certain extent," she explains, "when people buy products with so-called alternative sweeteners, it gives them an excuse to eat sugar. They'll say, Oh, it's organic, so it's O.K.' Or, It's a whole food.' But it's not whole food. If you wanted the whole food, you'd go out in the field and eat the sugar cane, and get all the fiber and nutrients it has." (3)

I found a sugar refining website (4) that talks about the process of sugar refining, but leaves out when the various sugar products are produced. The sugar refining process is very interesting to me. It reminds me that sugar is in no way a whole food. What once was a beautiful green sugar cane (sold at open markets in Hawaii and fun to chew on) ends up an embarrassed little pile of tiny white, nutrition-less crystals.

Ah, I should write a children's book about the sugar refining process from the sugar cane's point of view. Poor guy.


(1) (-http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=120)
(2) (http://www.worldpantry.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/nspired/sunspire/faq.d2w/report#gsweet)
(3) (http://organicanews.com/news/article.cfm?story_id=23)
(4) (http://www.refinedsugar.org/)

Cereal, Sugar and You: A Health Food Person's Worst Nightmare!

I have been reading a lot about cereal lately, and thought I should further investigate the ingredients of mainstream, popular cereals, their advertising campaigns, and the result of eating cereal regularly as part of a daily habit. I'll start by saying that since I have given up refined sugar, it has been extremely hard to find cereal without any sugar. Sugar comes in the form of: corn syrup, evaporated cane juice, organic sugar, raw sugar, organic cane sweetener, etc. Most of these ingredients you will find in "healthy" varieties of cereal, otherwise, the ingredient label will most likely just read, "sugar". I have recently decided to eat only whole grains for breakfast and no more packaged cereal. I just know better but have been lazy! I mean, I have been eating cereal with no sugar, but even then, I know it's not as healthy as fresh sprouted grains and fresh fruits.

Cereal was brought to my attention by (http://paynowlivelater.blogspot.com/2008/08/worst-sugar-pushers-of-all-health-food.html) including that even health food stores don't discriminate much when it comes to packaged food ingredients. You may find that there are no "trans fats" (very trendy words right now) and maybe even no corn product, but you will most likely be sure to find sugar as an ingredient. The marketing behind the cereal/sugar pushers is outrageous! They are so good at making their product look good, that I find myself doing a double take when I see advertisements like this one: http://www.kelloggs.co.uk/specialk/challenge.aspx, which is called "Kellogg's Special K Challenge", where they advocate eating two bowls of their cereal to help you lose weight! Let me tell you that Special K does not care about the health of their customers! If they did, they would promote whole foods, vegetables and fruits at every meal, and would not try and sell crap in a box (here are the ingredients in an American sold box: Rice, wheat gluten, sugar, defatted wheat germ, salt, high fructose corn syrup, dried whey, malt flavoring, calcium caseinate, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), alpha tocopherol acetate (vitamin E), reduced iron, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, and vitamin B12.). What I think is so interesting, is that Special K changes their ingredients for different countries. Although they include "sugar" as an ingredient for all countries, the UK and Australia do not have the "high fructose corn syrup" that we have. Weird! Special K is a giant marketing beast and care only about monetary gain. How they get that money is through very believable, expensive marketing.

I don't mean to pick on any one cereal company, in fact, there are plenty of "healthy" cereals that are doused with loads of sugar! It is so ironic to me. You can't trust any one store, or any one brand. I would say trust your instincts, but I guess if we truly did that, we wouldn't eat anything packaged to begin with!