Sugar adds a sweet flavor to food and drinks. It can also act as a food preservative. Sugar is used in many different kinds of foods, including alcohol, cakes, cookies, pickles, jams, ice cream and jellies. Sugar is classified as honey, maple sugar, corn syrup, raw sugar and brown sugar.
Significance
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that sugar comprised between 16 to 20 percent of the total calories consumed in an average American person's daily diet in 2000. The daily recommended sugar intake, however, was less than half this figure, or 6 to 10 percent total per day. The average American consumed an average of 20 teaspoons of processed sugar every day.
Identification
Sugar is actually a simple carbohydrate. Sugar has 16 calories per teaspoon. It does not contain vitamins or minerals, which makes it a food item to use as sparingly as possible. Consuming too much sugar can cause cavities and weight gain.
Prevention/Solution
To avoid gaining too much weight from sugar, you should purchase fresh fruits or canned fruits packed in water, light syrup or juice instead of those that are packed in heavy syrups. You should also purchase fewer foods that have a great deal of sugar, such as desserts, soft drinks and fruit-flavored punches. You should be aware of the fact that some low-fat desserts can be very high in sugar. Add a smaller amount of sugar to your tea, coffee, fruit and cereal. Instead of using sugar to create baked goods, add spices including ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander and mace to sweeten your food. Spiced food tastes even sweeter when it is warm. When you bake cookies and cakes, use only half a cup of sugar. Use one tablespoon of sugar for quick breads and muffins and one teaspoon of sugar for yeast breads.
Types
Besides the different sugar classifications, there are three main types of sugar. Monosaccharides are made out of only one sugar molecule. Examples of monosaccharides include fructose, galactose and glucose. Disaccharides are created when two molecules of sugar get linked together. For example, when fructose and glucose combine, they form sucrose (commonly known as table sugar). When more than two sugar molecules become linked together, they create complex carbohydrates, or polysaccharides (commonly referred to as starch).
Misconceptions
It's been alleged that eating a lot of sugar can cause you to develop diabetes. This is actually untrue, but it is a fact that a person who is diagnosed with diabetes must eat less sugar.
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