Killing You Sweetly

Be honest – what do you do if, while reading a food label, you see an ingredient like Butylated Hydroxytoluene? Most of us skip right over it. Why? We can’t pronounce it, we don’t know what it is, and we kind of dismiss it as “not being really harmful or 'they' wouldn’t put it in there.”

Would your feelings change once I explain that Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT) is a product that is not only in cereal but also used in jet fuel and embalming fluid?

Why, you wonder, would food manufacturers add toxins to food? Well, they know you trust them, they know you’re not going to research the ingredients, and they add a lot of sugar to develop that craving and addiction in you that makes you want that product at all costs. Forgive me but I can’t call it food.

Rule of thumb: If there are more than six ingredients in the product, run! If there are ingredients that force you to s-l-o-w-l-y pronounce them (and start over at least twice), run faster! If an ingredient is competing with the alphabet for length, run for dear life!

This brings me to sugar. Many of us are now more conscious of our sugar intake and we dutifully read our food labels. Unfortunately, many are still consuming a lot more sugar than we realize.

Here’s a test. The following is a list of ingredients from a brand of crackers. How many types of sugar can you find in the list?

Chocolate Chip Bars Granola (whole grain oats, brown sugar, crisp rice (rice flour, sugar, salt, malted barley extract), whole grain rolled wheat, soybean oil, dried coconut, whole wheat flour, sodium bicarbonate, soy lecithin, caramel color, nonfat dry milk), corn syrup, semisweet chocolate chips, brown rice crisp, sunflower oil, oligofructose, polydextrose, corn syrup solids, glycerin. Contains 2 percent or less of water, invert sugar, salt, molasses, sucralose, natural and artificial flavor, BHT, citric acid

Answer (sugars are in red):

Chocolate Chip Bars

Granola (whole grain oats, brown sugar, crisp rice (rice flour, sugar, salt, malted barley extract), whole grain rolled wheat, soybean oil, dried coconut, whole wheat flour, sodium bicarbonate, soy lecithin, caramel color, nonfat dry milk), corn syrup, semisweet chocolate chips, brown rice crisp, sunflower oil, oligofructose, polydextrose, corn syrup solids, glycerin. Contains 2 percent or less of water, invert sugar, salt, molasses, sucralose (aka. Splenda), natural and artificial flavor, BHT, citric acid

As you can see, labels can advise you that there are 10 grams of sugar in your cracker, when in actuality, there can be 5 grams of "sugar", plus 5 grams of "malt syrup," 5 grams of "invert sugar" and 5 grams of "glucose", plus others. Sugar names, if you notice, are dispersed throughout the list because most of us stop reading by ingredient number five, anyway.

How many names of sugar do you know?

Some sugars are disguised with long, scientific sounding titles or given attractive, artistic substitutes. Regardless of the name, the thing that’s flowing into your cells by way of your blood is still sugar. Here’s the list:

1. Agave nectar

2. Agave syrup

3. Barbados sugar

4. Barley malt

5. Beet sugar

6. Blackstrap molasses

7. Brown sugar

8. Buttered syrup

9. Cane juice

10. Cane juice crystals

11. Cane juice solids

12. Cane sugar

13. Caramel

14. Carob syrup

15. Castor sugar

16. Confectioners’s sugar

17. Corn syrup

18. Corn syrup solids

19. Crystalline fructose

20. Date sugar

21. Dehydrated fruit juice

22. Demarara sugar

23. Dextran

24. Dextrin

25. Dextrose

26. Diastatic malt

27. Diastase

28. Ethyl maltol

29. Evaporated cane juice

30. Florida crystals

31. Fructose

32. Fruit juice

33. Fruit juice concentrate

34. Fruit juice crystals

35. Galactose

36. Glucose

37. Glucose solids

38. Golden syrup

39. Grape sugar

40. High fructose corn syrup

41. Honey

42. Icing sugar

43. Invert sugar

44. Lactose

45. Malt syrup

46. Maltodextrin

47. Maltose

48. Maple syrup

49. Molasses

50. Muscovado

51. Organic raw sugar

52. Panocha

53. Raw sugar

54. Refiner's syrup

55. Rice syrup

56. Sorghum syrup

57. Sucrose

58. Treacle

59. Turbinado

60. Yellow sugar

If you have not been doing so, make an effort to lower your sugar intake. Begin to wean yourself, after a while. Yes, it will be difficult for some but the end result - improved health - will far outweigh the discomfort.