How much sugar should we eat? The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that added sugars make up no more than 10 percent of your daily calorie intake. (Added sugar is sweetness not from the food itself, like raisons.) The recommendations mean that someone on a typical 2,000 calorie a day diet should only derive 200 calories a day from sugar—equal to one, 16-ounce soda. Yet most Americans consume at least twice the recommended amount and few people who have the soda “habit” only drink one soft drink a day.
Once upon a time, “sugar” meant sugar from sugar cane or sugar beets. But since 1980, soft drink producers have favored high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and they have been followed by most major food producers and processors. Trade restrictions in other countries to protect local sugar production made sugar more expensive to use even as U.S. farmers were growing copious amounts of corn because of farm subsidies. HFCS is also cheaper to produce, store and ship.
While many say HFCS does not taste the same as the “real” sugar it replaced, the most concerning issue with HFCP is its links to obesity, diabetes, liver damage, memory problems and even possible mercury contamination. A Harvard study found men who drank the most sugar-sweetened sodas, mostly with HFCS, were 20 percent more likely to suffer coronary heart disease. The finding was true regardless of their age, diet, family history, smoking or alcohol. Almost ninety percent of U.S. corn is also genetically modified.
