57 Sugars that Are Destroying Your Health

DietsInReview

By Jonathan Bailor for DietsInReview.com

Every day we learn something new about how sugar destroys our health and expands our waistlines. Even worse, it seems like every other day food corporations come up with new a name for sugar. For example, all of the following are basically sugar, from our metabolism's perspective:



1. Agave Nectar
2. Barley Malt
3. Beet Sugar
4. Brown Sugar
5. Buttered Syrup
6. Cane Crystals
7. Cane Juice Crystals
8. Cane Sugar
9. Caramel
10. Carob Syrup
11. Castor Sugar
12. Confectioner's Sugar
13. Corn Sweetener
14. Corn Syrup
15. Corn Syrup Solids
16. Crystalline Fructose
17. Date Sugar
18. Demerara Sugar
19. Dextran
20. Dextrose
21. Diastatic Malt
22. Diatase
23. Ethyl Maltol
24. Evaporated Cane Juice
25. Fructose
26. Fruit Juice
27. Fruit Juice Concentrates
28. Galactose
29. Glucose
30. Glucose Solids
31. Golden Sugar
32. Golden Syrup
33. Granulated Sugar
34. Grape Sugar
35. High-Fructose Corn Syrup
36. Honey
37. Icing Sugar
38. Invert Sugar
39. Lactose
40. Malt Syrup
41. Maltodextrin
42. Maltose
43. Maple Syrup
44. Molasses
45. Muscovado Sugar
46. Panocha
47. Raw Sugar
48. Refiner's Syrup
49. Rice Syrup
50. Sorbitol
51. Sorghum Syrup
52. Sucrose
53. Sugar
54. Syrup
55. Treacle
56. Turbinado Sugar
57. Yellow Sugar

Memorizing this list isn't important. It is important to know that any form of caloric sweetener harms our health and leads to weight gain. Put differently, our body does not care where sweetener calories come from. To our body, apple juice is basically the same as soda, since they both contain about 30 grams of sugar. A "weight-loss" bar with 30 grams of sweeteners causes the same clog as a candy bar with 30 grams of sugar. "Heart-smart" cereal is worse than breakfast pastries--they are both full of sweeteners, but you may feel bad eating more than two pastries while happily filling bowl after bowl with "enriched" sweetened cereal.

It's also important that you protect yourself from misleading "natural" marketing. Unnatural high-fructose corn syrup is 42-percent fructose. Natural agave nectar is about 90-percent fructose. Snake venom is also natural. Sure the juice, bar, cereal and agave may have some additional accompanying nutrients, but that doesn't make the sweeteners in them any less harmful. Dissolving a vitamin pill in a can of soda doesn't make the soda healthy.

One of the biggest sugar offenders is high-fructose corn syrup. This caloric sweetener is especially common in low-calorie and low-fat products and is especially fattening. Combine this with the guidance to avoid calories and foods containing fat, and we end up unintentionally eating 10,475 percent more high-fructose corn syrup than we did in 1970. Eating all that high-fructose corn syrup is particularly harmful. In studies, rats that were fed high-fructose corn syrup consistently got fatter and sicker than rats fed the exact same amount of sugar.

Bottom line: If what you are about to eat isn't something found directly in nature (vegetables, seafood, meat, fruit, nuts, seeds, etc.), it's likely had "sugar" added to it. Keep wellness simple and stick with natural whole foods. You'll be "sugar" free and slim.

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About the Author

Jonathan Bailor is the author of The Smarter Science of Slim, which simplifies the analysis of more than 1,100 scientific studies to provide a proven lifestyle for lasting wellness by focusing on the quality of food and exercise and then eating more and exercising less - but smarter. The Smarter Science of Slim is endorsed by many members of the world-wide scientific community, including top doctors at the Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins and UCLA, and approved as curriculum for registered dieticians (RDs) by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly The American Dietetic Association).