While there are no recommendations about how much artificial or natural sugar can be consumed per day, nutritionists recommend limiting your intake and avoid excesses. Besides the weight gain from eating carbohydrates causes an elevation of glucose (sugar) levels. This, in turn, causes an increased release of insulin, the hormone responsible for facilitating the use of blood glucose and, indeed, this is what has been related to some negative effects on the body. Not that sugar causes diabetes, but people who have this disease, cardiovascular problems or who want to control their weight should moderate your intake of sugar more than others.
The Truth About Sweeteners
Sweeteners are substances used to sweeten foods and are classified according to their energy content in nutritional or caloric (containing great power sweetener, you can find natural and processed or provide 4 calories per gram) and non-nutritive or non- calorie (which provide zero calories).
Within the group of processed calorie sweeteners can be found:
- Sucrose, which is present in raw sugar, granulated sugar, brown sugar, confectioners’ sugar and is derived from beet or cane sugar.
- Corn sweeteners, which are often used in soft drinks, baked goods and some canned products.
- Dextrose, glucose is combined with water.
- Invert sugar, which is obtained by dividing sucrose into its two parts: glucose and fructose.
Among the defendants can not find the following:
- Raw sugar, granulated, solid or thick and dark brown which is obtained from the evaporation of juice from sugar cane.
- Brown sugar is made from sugar crystals obtained from molasses syrup.
- Fructose is the sugar that is naturally in all fruits
- Glucose, found in fruits and other foods.
- Honey, which is a combination of fructose, glucose and water.
- Lactose (milk sugar) found in milk and is composed of glucose and galactose.
- Maltose (malt sugar), which is produced during the fermentation process and is found in beer and bread.
- Maple sugar is obtained from the sap of maple trees. It consists of sucrose, fructose and glucose.
- Molasses is obtained from the residue of organic sugar cane.
- Sorbitol and mannitol are used in many diet products for people with diabetes. The body absorbs them at a much slower rate than sugar but may cause diarrhea if eaten in excess.
- Stevia is a natural sweetener that is derived from a shrub native to Paraguay and Brazil. The leaves of the plant are 30 times sweeter than sugar and extract about 200 times more, but is not recognized as safe by the authorities of the Food and Drug Administration of USA (FDA, for its acronym in English) because there is no scientific evidence to indicate that it is not harmful to health.
This group includes substances with a great sweetening power but do not provide calories:
- Aspartame, a combination of phenylalanine and aspartic acid (two amino acids) and is 200 times sweeter than sugar, but you can use for baking.
- Acesulfame K, artificial sweetener that can be used for cooking and baking.
- Saccharin is 300 times sweeter than sugar. It is the first artificial sweetener was used and is used in various foods and diet drinks.
- Sucralose is a sweetener made from sucrose (white) through certain technological processes is transformed into a molecule that is excreted almost entirely as it passes through the body. Because sucralose is the same sugar, has the best flavor and is the safest of non-caloric sweeteners known today.
- Cyclamates are 30 times sweeter than sugar and are not approved for use in the United States because in 1970 it was discovered that caused bladder cancer in animals.
Is it safe to use?
Before any sweetener is approved for commercial is is must go through a series of tests
that cost millions of dollars and can take several years of reviews by the FDA and authorities in each country.
Saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame K and sucralose are the ones approved by the FDA. Recommended safety levels for aspartame is 18 envelopes diet soda or three 12-ounce (355 ml) per day, for a person weighing 130 pounds (59 kg), but is not recommended that people with PKU consume a metabolic problem that appears at birth and where you can not use phenylalanine, an amino acid.
In conclusion, sweeteners help us make the rich taste of our food. We recommend eating the most natural, as brown sugar or honey. If you do not want to add calories to our diet, sucralose is the best option. People with diabetes should avoid natural sweeteners that increase blood glucose, such as sucrose or white sugar, and people who want to lose weight should avoid contributing calories. Anyway, remember that all excesses are bad, so enjoy the benefits of sweeteners but not overdo it.