Limit Sugar in Your Diet
By Bob Greene, BFA, MFA
eDiets Contributor

The average American consumes well in excess of 100 pounds of refined sugar each year. Yes, you read that correctly: 100 pounds! Consuming too much sugar has been shown to:

And that's just what we know now! There is no question limiting your consumption of sugar is in your best interest. We're going to look at some ways to do that, but first, let's talk about what sugar is.

Sugar is really carbohydrate. For some, this causes a good bit of confusion, since we've been told carbohydrates are good for us. The truth is, there are some carbohydrates that are bad for us and others that we need in our diet. To make sense of this, you might find it useful to learn a little about carbohydrates.

There are basically three different types of carbohydrates: monosaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. They are distinguished by the number of simple sugars that they are made of.

Monosaccharides are simple sugars: glucose, fructose and galactose. Glucose, also known as blood sugar, can be produced when your body breaks down more complex carbohydrates. It’s also found in some of the foods we eat.

Oligosaccharides are most frequently disaccharides or double sugars.
They are formed when two monosaccharides combine.

The three main disaccharides are:
Lactose = glucose + galactose
Maltose = glucose + glucose
Sucrose = glucose + fructose

Lactose is the sugar found in milk. It's also referred to as milk sugar. Maltose is not a common component to our diets. It shows up in malt products, such as beer and certain germinating cereals. Sucrose is the most common dietary sugar and is abundant in cane sugar, honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, even beets. We should be most concerned with limiting sucrose in our diet -- and be particularly aware of limiting refined sugar or table sugar. Refined sugar comes from stripping the natural coating from the cane plant and is found abundantly in foods such as candy, cakes, pies, soda and some cereals.

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