From staff reports

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The American Heart Association isn’t sweet on sugar.

The stuff has been blamed for a laundry list of health problems, including obesity and diabetes. Stephen Hill, spokesperson for the AHA’s Springfield office, said that obesity and diabetes greatly increase the possibility for cardiovascular disease, and that’s why the AHA takes sugar seriously.

Seriously enough to develop dietary limits that fill a gap in federal recommended daily allowances, Hill said. But how do you know when you’ve had too much?

For the first time, Americans now have a benchmark: No more than 25 grams of added sugar a day for women and 37.5 grams for men, according to new guidelines established by the AHA.

It’s easy to soar past those limits. Downing just one 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola will give you 39 grams of sugar, exceeding your daily ration. But a lesser-known problem with sugar is that it’s hidden in everything from soup to nuts. It’s lurking in your lunch meat. It enhances bread. And if a low-fat product or frozen dinner tastes good, you may have added sugar to thank.

As a result, we’re regularly ingesting an average of 88.8 grams of added sugar a day, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey — more than three times what the AHA recommends.

“What we know is that many of us consume more sugar than we realize,” Hill said. “Added sugars have zero nutritional value, but take up daily caloric content, so they are basically wasted calories.”



New limits

Flooding your body with sugar often results in a blood sugar high — followed by a crash. Excess sugar intake has also been linked to inflammation, which can trigger a cascade of poor health conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.

But there’s no recommended daily allowance for sugar because the body doesn’t need it. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines vaguely advise us to “choose added sugars in moderation.”

The AHA, however, felt consumers needed a specific target, said Rachel Johnson, lead author of the guidelines and professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont. The limits, released in September 2009, were developed after considering the number of discretionary calories a typical American has left after fulfilling all nutritional requirements. So, a more active person would have more discretionary calories, said Johnson.

Of course, sugar occurs naturally in foods — lactose in milk and fructose in fruit, for instance. These natural sugars are less alarming because they’re accompanied by nutrients. But nutrition labels don’t distinguish between natural and added sugars, which are those used during processing. The guidelines only address added sugars.

That means it’s important to look for sugar — and its euphemisms — in the ingredient list

Watch for words ending in “-ose,” such as lactose or maltose, Hill said. Those are simply chemical names for sugar.

In addition to making foods sweeter, sugar is used to maintain color, texture and flavor, said Sean O’Keefe, a professor in the department of food science and technology at Virginia Tech.



Hidden calories

Here are some of the unexpected places it pops up, with some specific product examples (measurements given for typical serving sizes):

• Breads and crackers: Sugar can help smooth and balance the flavor, said O’Keefe, who is also a spokesman for the Institute of Food Technologists. “Adding sugar to bread is one way of ensuring it rises properly before baking.”

• Pepperidge Farm Plain Bagels: 10 grams per bagel.

• Smart Start’s “Original Antioxidants” cereal: 14 grams per cup (Of note: Sugar is mentioned 14 times in various forms in the ingredient list).

• Cereal bars and granola: Sugar is added to help with taste, texture and to lower the water content, increasing the bars’ shelf life, O’Keefe said.

• Quaker Natural Granola Oats Honey and Raisins: 30 grams per 1 cup.

• Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars: 13 grams per bar.

• Tomato-based products: Sugar is used to give tomatoes the optimal sugar-acid balance and improve flavor if they’re picked before they ripen. Tomatoes naturally have about 5 grams of sugar. Anything over that is likely added.

• Ketchup: 4 grams per tablespoon.

• Peanut butter: Dextrose is added for taste and to stabilize emulsion, O’Keefe said.

• Skippy Natural Super Chunk: 3 grams per 2 tablespoons.

• Dairy: Sugar is added for taste. Plain yogurt has about 12 grams of natural sugar; flavored can have up to 35 grams.

• Horizon Organic fat-free vanilla: 24 grams per 6-ounce container.

• Shelf-stable meals, canned soups and frozen dinners: Virtually any packaged meal will have added sugar to help improve taste. Look for meals with less than 5 grams of added sugar.

• Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers Sesame Teriyaki Chicken, 15 grams per serving.

• Weight Watchers Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine: 12 grams per serving.

Hill said these hidden calories mean that health-conscious shoppers must make their own calculations from information on the food label.

“There are four calories in each gram of sugar,” Hill said. “We always recommend that people do the math themselves.”

— Features Editor Joe Hadsall contributed to this report.



Reducing sugar

Stephen Hill, of the American Red Cross, offered these tips to help cut down on sugar:

• When adding sugar to a dish, cut the usual amount down by half, and wean yourself from there.

• Buy sugar-free, low-calorie beverages.

• Make sure fruits are canned in water or natural juices, not syrup.

• Instead of adding sugar to oatmeal or other warm cereals, try adding fruit.

• When baking cookies, reduce the amount of sugar by a third or a half. Often, a difference won’t be noticed.

• Try using extracts instead of sugar. Spices such as allspice, ginger or nutmeg can sweeten things well. Even unsweetened applesauce can work.