Mary Poppins slightly changed the world when she sang about a spoon full of sugar helping the medicine go down. Never, to my knowledge, had any well-respected nanny promoted just feeding kids spoons full of sugar. But that Mary Poppins had her act together. A little sugar can make almost anything better.But how many spoon fulls would Mary Poppins, or perhaps the USDA, say is too much?
The reason I ask is because this past Sunday my roommate asked me if I wanted french toast. I did, but I questioned if it had to be my one dessert for the day. One roommate answered "yes, if you eat it with syrup," the other said "no way." I went with the roommate who said, "no way."
After eating the french toast, I looked up the amount of sugar in syrup. I learned that I had consumed nearly 22 grams of sugar. Now, what the devil does that mean, right?
Well, here's a little trick that's helpful. If you divide the amount of grams by four, it will give you the number of teaspoons of sugar. So I had eaten 5 1/2 teaspoons of sugar with the syrup. So, once again, what the devil does that mean?
It gets even more complicated if you do a comparison test. With the syrup, I had more sugar than I would have if I had eaten a full-size Almond Joy (5 teaspoons), but less sugar than in a 6 oz. Yoplait fruit yogurt (6 teaspoons). HELLO, SHOCKING. This whole time when I've been eating yogurt I could have been eating Almond Joys! (Don't worry, this is not the new plan.)
The USDA recommends to eat no more than 10 teaspoons of sugar a day, but the average American downs about 34 teaspoons. As we all know this is very easy to do because sugar makes most everything better.
There's more than two teaspoons in 1/2 a cup of Prego sauce, three teaspoons in Shredded Wheat with Honey (compared to 2 1/2 teaspoons in Cinnamon Toast Crunch!), and two teaspoons in one cup of macaroni and cheese.
Now that I've learned all this, do I still consider french toast a dessert? Well, since I only had two tablespoons of syrup, I decided no. But if I had an entire cup (which let's be honest isn't that hard to use on a plate full of french toast), I would have consumed 48 teaspoons sugar! Now that would have been one sugar-loaded (and divine) dessert.
This is terrifying. I had no idea I was consuming so much sugar.
ReplyDeleteRach, another great post! But I do want you to be cautious about comparing sugars, particulary added sugars. There are natural sugars in milk/dairy products, as well as fruit, that are not the same kind of sugar in Almond Joy's (unnless you have diabetes). True, yoplait yogurt kicks in some added sugar, so it's not the best for you, but 1 cup of nonfat milk has 15 grams of sugar and it's all natural lactose sugar, no sugar added. The FDA has considered spliting the sugar label on the nutrition facts into natural and added sugars, but they have not found it worth there while to put it on the label yet (most likely because TONS of food companies would put them on their hitlist). Just be sure to check the ingredients for ADDED sugars...that's where they will get you! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat information Britt, RD. But since I'm on the path to diabetes, I think I'm still going to choose the Almond Joy over the yogurt. ;-) Thanks for the insight!
ReplyDeleteThis is great Rach! I also love Britt's info. I'm learning so much!
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy - everything has sugar. My month-long sugar fast last year was ridiculous - even potato chips have sugar. Good reminder to read labels!
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