There have many things that have been blamed for the obesity epidemic that has been ravishing the nation. Among the causes are things such as calories, fats, carbs, and sugars as well as a lack of exercise and poor portion control. One of the many issues with these is that most Americans don’t even know what a gram of sugar looks like and what it compares to. One of the main issues with the current nutritional labeling system is that it makes no effort to say which foods have had sugar and other ingredients added to them and which foods have naturally occurring sugars (these are usually healthier and, well, natural). While this might not seem like much, there is a shocking amount of added sugar in the vast majority of our foods that most people don’t even know about and it is slowly poisoning our country while simultaneously adding to the obesity epidemic.
The addition of an added sugar category to the new nutrition labels would go a long way towards both educating people about hidden sugar and how to avoid it as well as calling out the sugar and food industry for pumping our foods full of unnecessary ingredients simply to make a profit. Foods in Europe and around the world have significantly less sugar in all of their foods (seriously; if you ask a European about the differences between our bread and theirs they will most likely comment on how our bread is so sweet) and these countries also have less of an issue with obesity and other weight-related issues. The food and sugar industries are obviously fighting against these new labels due to the negative press that it will bring on them as well as because of the risk towards the deals they have made with each other and the profits that might be lost. Hopefully the FDA doesn’t give in to the pressure and money being thrown around by these two huge industries and proves that health is more important than business by forcing all labels to include the amounts of added sugar.
If you’d like to read more, the link is here.
from Moshira Soliman, Integrative Nutrition, and Health http://ift.tt/10wu0Yv
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