We’ve talked many times about weight loss, fat, cooking oils, obesity and other topics related to being overweight. But we’ve not discussed another source of fat in our diets which is fructose.
I used to think table sugar was “empty calories,” which meant that I could eat all I wanted without a health penalty (except perhaps for tooth decay). I was wrong. Table sugar, the white substance that is made at the Amalgamated Sugar factory in Nampa with sugar beets grown in southwest Idaho, is fifty percent fructose and fifty percent glucose.
Fructose readily converts to fat in our livers. Every time we drink a sugary beverage or eat a sugary treat we are very likely adding fat to our bodies. Glucose does not convert readily to fat. Glucose is critical to our health because it’s the preferred energy source to power every cell in our bodies.
Why do we have an obesity epidemic? Some suspect that our massive consumption of refined sugar is a major cause. Americans consume about twenty-two teaspoons of sugar per day. (Page 118 Robert Lustig’s book Fat Chance). (I don’t consume any refined sugar anymore. Do you?)
Sugar is added to nearly every processed food people buy. As an exercise, check the ingredients on any of the processed foods in your grocery store. I suspect you will find added sugar in most, even though it may be disguised by names such as maltodextrin or corn syrup. Here are several examples: Breakfast cereal, baked beans, Campbell’s vegetarian vegetable soup, and Pad Thai Sauce.
Another common source of fructose is high fructose corn syrup which is found in many processed foods and in beverages like Coca Cola and Mountain Dew.
Those of us in the “whole foods” movement avoid the fructose problems of our friends and neighbors because we eat “whole plant foods.” Fruits contain naturally occurring fructose which in a “whole plant” package is beneficial to our health.
Reed Burkholder September 17, 2019