(Tara Parker-Pope/ The New York Times) — Here’s the last New Year’s health resolution you might ever need: resolve to stop eating added sugar.
While you might think you’re not eating much sugar, chances are you’re eating a lot more than you realize. Added sugar lurks in nearly 70 percent of packaged foods and is found in breads, health foods, snacks, yogurts, most breakfast foods and sauces. The average American eats about 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day (not counting the sugars that occur naturally in foods like fruit or dairy products). That’s about double the recommended limit for men (nine teaspoons) and triple the limit for women (six teaspoons). For children, the limit should be about three teaspoons of added sugar and no more than six, depending on age and caloric needs.
Cutting added sugar isn’t about dieting and deprivation, and you don’t have to count calories or cut fat. In fact, when you stop eating foods with added sugar, you’ll replace them with foods that taste even better. And yes, you can still have dessert.
Whether you are thin or fat, you can benefit by reducing the sugar in your diet. “It’s not about being obese, it has to do with metabolic health,” says Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the first to raise the alarm about the health risks of added sugar. (His 90-minute lecture called Sugar: The Bitter Truth has been viewed more than nine million times since 2009.) (…)