57 Sneaky Sugars to Avoid

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.
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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 a new 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

Sugar By Any Name is Just as Toxic and Addictive
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.

Don't Be Deceived by "Natural" Marketing
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.

Who Else is Fed Up With High-Fructose Corn Syrup?
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. [1] [2] 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. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

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.

How Avoid Added Sweeteners Simply and Deliciously

Yours in making "healthy" healthy again,

- Jonathan Bailor

References:

1. Johnson, Richard J., and Timothy Gower. The sugar fix: The high-fructose fallout that is making you fat and sick. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2008. Print.

2. Stanhope KL, Griffen SC, Bair BR, Swarbrick MM, Keim NL, Havel PJ. Twenty-four-hour endocrine and metabolic profiles following consumption of high-fructose corn syrup-, sucrose-, fructose-, and glucose-sweetened beverages with meals. Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 May;87(5):1194-203. PubMed PMID: 18469239.

3. Bocarsly ME, Powell ES, Avena NM, Hoebel BG. High-fructose corn syrup causes characteristics of obesity in rats: Increased body weight, body fat and triglyceride levels. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2010 Feb 26. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 20219526.

4. Jürgens H, Haass W, Castañeda TR, Schürmann A, Koebnick C, Dombrowski F, Otto B, Nawrocki AR, Scherer PE, Spranger J, Ristow M, Joost HG, Havel PJ, Tschöp MH. Consuming fructose-sweetened beverages increases body adiposity in mice. Obes Res. 2005 Jul;13(7):1146-56. PubMed PMID: 16076983.

5. Stanhope KL, Havel PJ. Fructose consumption: considerations for future research on its effects on adipose distribution, lipid metabolism, and insulinsensitivity in humans. J Nutr. 2009 Jun;139(6):1236S-1241S. Epub 2009 Apr 29. PubMed PMID: 19403712.

6. Stanhope KL, Havel PJ. Fructose consumption: potential mechanisms for its effects to increase visceral adiposity and induce dyslipidemia and insulinresistance. Curr Opin Lipidol. 2008 Feb;19(1):16-24. Review. PubMed PMID: 18196982.

7. Stanhope KL, Schwarz JM, Keim NL, Griffen SC, Bremer AA, Graham JL, Hatcher B, Cox CL, Dyachenko A, Zhang W, McGahan JP, Seibert A, Krauss RM, Chiu S, Schaefer EJ, Ai M, Otokozawa S, Nakajima K, Nakano T, Beysen C, Hellerstein MK, Berglund L, Havel PJ. Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans. J Clin Invest. 2009 May;119(5):1322-34. doi:10.1172/JCI37385. Epub 2009 Apr 20. PubMed PMID: 19381015; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2673878.

8. Vrána A, Fábry P. Metabolic effects of high sucrose or fructose intake. World Rev Nutr Diet. 1983;42:56-101. Review. PubMed PMID: 6375162.

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