Video – Why Added Sugar is Everywhere?

Hello. I’ve just published this video on youtube. You can watch the video (just hit play in the image above) .

For those of you who prefer to read, I’ve created this article with images (from the video) to make it easier to explain why in the last 20 years Food Companies have been adding more and more sugar to their products.

In a study, the source of the study here, of 85 thousand food purchases made between 2005 to 2009, 75% of them contained added sugar or artificial sweeteners. 

This means most of the foods available in the supermarkets contain sugar.

Most of the foods available in supermarkets are processed foods.

Processed food

Processed food is any food that has been chemically processed, and is made of refined ingredients and artificial substances.

Today in America, processed foods make up around 70 percent of most people’s diet, and processed foods are high in sugar and have little or no fiber.

The American Heart Association recommends we eat less than nine teaspoons of sugar while eating 25 grams of fiber per day, but the reality is very different. 

In America, the average for each person is 19.5 teaspoons of sugar and only 15 grams of fiber per day. 

That’s double the sugar and half the fiber. Double Trouble.

What happens when you double the sugar intake and reduce fiber intake by half? 

Food companies have found how this can help them make millions of dollars.

 

Why Processed Foods are High in Sugar and Contain No Fiber?

These ten food companies produce most of the processed food you can buy:

• Nestlé
• PepsiCo
• Unilever
• Kellogg’s
• Associated British Foods
• General Mills
• Danone
• Mondelez
• Mars
• Coca-cola

In 2017, Nestlé reported $91 billion dollars in revenue 

Pepsi reported $63 billion dollars

Coca-Cola reported 42 billion dollars.

Food companies have found two ways to sell more of their products and make them cheaper: Adding refined sugar and artificial sweeteners, and removing fiber.

Refined sugar makes food sweet so you constantly feel hungry (we will talk about that in a minute), and it’s highly addictive (we will talk about that too).

By removing fiber, food is faster to cook, easier to eat (your blood sugar levels rise fast) and easier to digest (you will feel hungry sooner).

Processed foods are engineered for overconsumption, to sell more, and not to provide nutritional value to the consumer.

Food Companies Remove Fiber

Processed foods without fiber have a longer shelf life and are easily frozen so they can be shipped worldwide. 

• It is faster to cook.
• It has less nutritional value. 
• It’s easier to eat and digest.
• Foods without fiber are easy to chew and swallow.
• Fiber takes longer to digest, which makes you feel fuller for longer. Without fiber, you don’t feel full, and you constantly want to eat more.

Let’s look at rice as an example: White rice is a refined grain and brown/red/wild rice are whole grains.

Refined grains have some parts of the grain removed. In the case of the white rice, it’s the bran and the germ that are removed. After that, the rice is polished with talcum powder to get that artificially white, shiny color.

So, white rice is refined while brown rice is a whole grain.

White rice has a 4 to 5 years shelf life, while brown rice has only 6 to 8 months.

White rice takes around 18 minutes to cook while brown rice takes 60 minutes. 

Brown rice contains essential fatty acids, is high in magnesium and fiber, and contains fewer calories.

White rice has a very low nutritional value.

White rice has a higher glycemic index which raises the blood sugar levels causing insulin to be produced. This means it’s not recommended for diabetics.

Brown rice has a lower glycemic index, and because of the fiber, it does not raise blood sugar levels as much. It’s digested and absorbed slowly and is recommended for diabetics.

Brown rice is a good carb as it contains valuable nutrients including fiber, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. In contrast, white rice does not provide any real nutritional value, contains no fiber, and we end up hungry soon after eating. 

Food Companies Add More Sugar 

We all inherently like sweet-tasting food. Back when our ancestors were searching for food, naturally sweet-tasting food tended to be more caloric and there was less chance of it being poisonous.

For example, Ripe fruit has more nutritional value than unripe fruit, and unripe fruit can make you very sick. 

When we eat sugar, our brains produce dopamine, our natural trigger for happiness. This rewards us for eating something sweet, and so we want to eat more. Sugar and sweet-tasting foods are addictive because of this.  

Back to our ancestors; this reward system helped us know which fruit to pick.

Today, we have replaced fruit and vegetables with refined carbs and processed food. Worldwide there’s one common diet: the high sugar diet.

The more sugar we eat, the more dopamine is produced, and the more dopamine we produce, the more sugar we want to eat. And so we eat more, more, and more. 

Studies have shown that Sugar is highly addictive. The more sugar you eat, the more pleasure you experience, but you’ll also start to develop tolerance and start to feel withdrawal if you aren’t eating a lot of sugar. 

Studies have shown that sugar is more addictive than cocaine.

“Consuming sugar produces effects similar to that of cocaine, altering mood, possibly through its ability to induce reward and pleasure, leading to the seeking out of sugar.”

 source here

“Sugar is noteworthy as a substance that releases opioids and dopamine and thus might be expected to have addictive potential. This review summarizes evidence of sugar dependence in an animal model.”

source here

Sugar is very cheap but, in 1975, and especially used in soft drinks, High Corn Fruit Syrup was introduced to America. HFCS is even cheaper than sugar and has more fructose than refined sugar. HFCS is high in fructose and several studies have shown that refined fructose has some very unhealthy effects on our body.

A high sugar diet can cause insulin resistance or type 2 Diabetes, elevated cholesterol, hypertension and several different types of heart disease. Sugar is also the number one cause of obesity.

High consumption of sugar makes you eat more than you should.  

Normally, after you eat, there’s a hormone in your stomach called leptin that is responsible for sending a signal to your brain saying that you are full. Your brain gets the message so you are full, and you don’t need to eat anymore.

But, in the last 20 years, we have replaced many healthy foods with refined carbs and processed food, all of which are high in sugar. 

When you have a high sugar diet, the leptin hormone doesn’t work properly, and it doesn’t send the message to your brain to say you’re full. Because of this, you feel that you’re starving all the time, and you end up eating more, more, and more! 

This leads to constant cravings, unending hunger, and constantly snacking.

Why Food Companies add More Sugar – Quick Recap

1. Our bodies love sugar and sweet-tasting food 
2. Sugar is highly addictive
3. High sugar diets cause a starving sensation so we keep on eating and constantly snacking
4. Sugar is cheap, and HFCS is even cheaper
5. The more added sugar you eat, the hungrier you feel

How to break this cycle?

Join my 20 No-Sugar Days Challenge. There are two simple rules:

No added sugar or artificial sweeteners for 20 days.

After the first week, I guarantee that you will have more energy and a better mood, you’ll be less bloated, you will lose weight, you will be less anxious and have better focus at work or when doing any other mental tasks. 

Finish this challenge and rid yourself of your sugar addiction forever! 

It’s 100% FREE, and there are sugar-free recipes, tips, and tricks available for free.

Click here to Join my 20 No-Sugar Days Challenge here.