Sugar, however, is a different story. It’s only in recent years that health experts have started to talk about sugar in greater depth. People are now questioning their diets in relation to their sugar intake, and rightly so.

Official recommendations regarding sugar

Worldwide governments and health organizations have recommendations with regards to dietary sugars and some are also starting sugar taxes. The truth is, we don’t actually know what quantities of sugar we should or shouldn’t be consuming. For this reason, CleanLabelCo ensure that no sugars are present in our products at all.

Sugar was originally a medication, however due to profiteering and its flavor, it ended up in our food supply in many forms as the major ingredient. “By 1700 average consumption of sugar in the developed world was approximately 4 pounds per annum and this accounted for less than 1 percent of calorie intake. By 1800 this had risen to approximately 18 pounds and by 1900 it was 60 pounds.” However, it wasn’t long after its popularisation that experts began to question the value of sugar for human health. Today we consume a whopping, 227 grams of sugar each day – equating to 81.6 kg per year. Mind-blowing!

The science behind sugar

Sugars are either monosaccharides or disaccharides. Monosaccharides are carbohydrates in their simplest form. They cannot be broken down further. Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose and galactose. These are found in honey and cane sugar as well as dairy products, beans and fruit. Disaccharides are formed when two monosaccharides are joined together and a molecule of water is removed. Examples of these are lactose and sucrose. These are often found in table sugar, sweets, chocolate, dairy products and corn syrup.

Biologically speaking, our bodies need glucose. Glucose is in all foods and is essential to life. The human body uses glucose efficiently and stores it in our muscles for later use. This is why we need to exercise. Saying that, our bodies were designed to feed off natural glucose found in all our common foods but in significantly smaller quantities than we are forcing down our throats today. Our body was not designed to overdose on glucose and we see the results of this overdose in our daily lives and everyday society. Table sugar is one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose. Just look at this ratio and you will see that it simply doesn’t make sense. There is no way that we were designed to consume equal amounts of fructose as glucose. This is ludicrous. Fructose is found in honey and stone fruits, which we mostly ate in summer to bulk up fat for the winter. We bulk up fat with fructose, because unlike glucose, our body is very bad and lazy at processing fructose, thus more of it is converted into fat. We were intended to consume fructose in very small amounts, nowhere near the amounts that we are consuming it in today’s world. What happens with this fructose is that it gets stored in our liver, creates a fatty liver and the globules of fat are then pumped out into our veins and blood. Let’s look in more detail at the different types of sugar.

Naturally occurring sugars – monosaccharides

Fructose

Once hailed as the ‘better’ sugar with regards to diabetes because of its inability to stimulate insulin secretion, fructose has played a big role in the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. There have been studies to show that when fructose is consumed in excess, it plays a pivotal role in the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia. Many believe that because fructose is naturally occurring, when it is listed on ingredients lists, it is ok.

Glucose

This is also called dextrose when listed in ingredients. Nearly all foods that contain carbohydrates will contain some level of glucose but fruits are usually the highest sources of glucose. Glucose can spike your blood sugar levels really quickly; this can affect you drastically if you are diabetic. The body uses glucose as a fuel for energy. Unhealthy levels of glucose can have a serious effect on the body. An increased intake of glucose leads to obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Galactose

Galactose is a naturally occurring sugar found in dairy products and some fruits and vegetables. It is often used as a filler in certain medications too. Galactose is not an essential nutrient. The body synthesizes most of the galactose it consumes and turns it into glucose.

Naturally occurring sugars – disaccharides

Lactose

Lactose is the sugar found in milk. In order for lactose to be broken down in the human body, the body requires lactase. In mammals, other than humans, lactase activity decreases after weaning. Caucasians continue to consume milk-products throughout their lives, and most have no problem doing so but it is rare for other ethnicities to be able to continue to consume this sugar.

Sucrose

Sucrose is common table sugar. It is produced naturally in plants like sugar beets or sugar cane. It is extracted and refined for human consumption. If consumed excessively, sucrose contributes to the development of metabolic syndrome. It is also responsible for tooth decay and gout.

Added Sugars

Added sugars come in two camps: refined and unrefined. This is often confusing for consumers as they’re unsure which, if any, is healthy or a healthier option. Let’s look at these further.

Refined

Refined sugar has what we call “empty calories”. This means that it has no nutritional value whatsoever. Refined sugar is broken down immediately. It is digested really quickly so it doesn’t give you any sort of ‘full’ feeling after eating it. If you’re consuming high quantities of refined sugar and not burning off the energy it produces, it will get stored in your body as fat, which, in itself, can be problematic. There is also evidence to suggest that consumption of refined sugars is linked to leptin resistance. Leptin resistance can lead to obesity, sleep problems and cravings. What’s more, your brain can become addicted!

Unrefined

Unrefined sugar is found naturally in substances like fruit and honey. Raw, unrefined sugar actually has some nutrients like magnesium, iron and calcium. Sugar cane actually only contains 10-15% sugar! However, we need to be careful not to consider unrefined sugar as healthy. It can still be processed. For example, if an unrefined sugar is in powder or liquid form, it is not in its natural state and has been processed. This means that it is a high concentration of sugar.

Health problems associated with the excess consumption of sugar

We all know that sugar causes health problems. Here are some problems that can be caused by excess sugar intake:

Metabolic syndrome – this is a medical term for a combination of illnesses, which includes diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. Whilst all of these conditions aren’t great to have on their own, combined together makes them particularly dangerous and put the patient at a greater risk of heart disease and stroke.

Obesity – in a recent nutrition survey, 63% of Australians were overweight or obese. Obesity has increased across the globe in recent decades. The World Health Organization estimated there to be around 1.9 billion adults that are overweight or obese in the world. That’s 13%! Excessive consumption of sugar, in particular, sugar-sweetened drinks, has been linked to weight gain.

Type 2 diabetes – whilst sugar consumption alone does not cause type 2 diabetes, it does lead to weight gain, which increases the risk of developing the disease. A study of 175 countries in 2013 showed that the more sugar there was in the food supply, the more cases of diabetes were found.

Tooth decay – bacteria in the mouth use sugar from foods and drinks to produce an acid that erodes teeth. Excessive consumption of sugar increases the occurrence of tooth decay as it provides more opportunities for the bacteria to produce the decay-causing acids.

Gout – fructose is the key ingredient when it comes to gout flare-ups. Gout occurs when painful crystals build up in the joints. The crystals come from high levels of uric acid, which is produced when the body breaks down fructose.

The Clean Label Company – CleanLabelCo

Now you know all about the different types of sugars and how they affect your body, you’ll want to avoid them, right? Well, there’s good news! CleanLabelCo products contain absolutely no sugar of any kind! In fact, they have a HUGE ban list of all sorts of additives alongside sugar! With The Clean Label Company, you can be sure that you are not ingesting any potentially harmful ingredients.