By Zonya Foco, RD

Sugar is everywhere. It doesn’t need a holiday to make a special appearance at every meal, in between meals or stocked in every cupboard. Sugar has ventured outside of merely riding high in candy and desserts and is now living large in our high-protein snacks and beverages. It stalks us at work, feeds us at school, greets us at church and glad-hands us at every get-together.

It’s important to realize that the consumption of sugar in America has increased by 30 percent since 1983, fueling our soaring obesity rate, type 2 diabetes, hypoglycemia, osteoporosis, cancer, and heart disease. Studies now show that 62 percent of Americans are either overweight or obese and we are at record highs for type 2 diabetes, most alarmingly among children.

Where is all this sugar increase coming from?
Beverages lead the pack of sugar offenders. Just one 12-ounce can of regular soda contains 42 grams of sugar and the same size container of lemonade has even more. In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, August 25th, 2004, found that drinking just one 12-ounce can of sweetened soda or fruit punch every day doubled the chances of getting type 2 diabetes. Their conclusion: "Higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a greater magnitude of weight gain and an increased risk for development of type 2 diabetes, possibly by providing excessive calories and large amounts of rapidly absorbable sugars."

You can also thank the low-fat/no-fat trend of the 80s and 90s. This trend ignited the "fat is bad, sugar is OK" fallacy. Food manufacturers responded with a plethora of tasty, sugar-loaded, fat-free foods. This seduced Americans into replacing healthy snack choices like fruits and vegetables with sugar-loaded, fat-free cookies and ice cream. Eating fat-free isn’t bad, but thinking that just because it says "fat free" means it’s healthy to eat unlimited portions IS bad.

The other culprit we can thank is our culture. We like things sweet. Our children tend to eat whatever is sweet. So food manufacturers have discovered that if they add sugar and make the food taste sweet, people buy it. And what sells makes money, so they make more of it.

But how much is too much?
If during the day, an adult enjoys a single doughnut at church, a mocha café at the coffee shop, and a couple of graham crackers after dinner, is that okay? What about our children? If they have pancakes with syrup for breakfast, a fruit punch or sport drink at the soccer field, and a typical ice cream treat after that, have we done okay or have we crossed the line?

The USDA and the Center for Science in Public Interest (CSPI), along with dozens of leading health experts and organizations, agree that an acceptable daily limit is 40 grams of sugars. And this limit is above and beyond the naturally occurring sugars found in foods like milk, unsweetened yogurt, fruits and 100-percent juice. Since every 4 grams of sugar equals one teaspoon, this means having 10 teaspoons of added sugar each day is A-okay.

Now, most of you might be thinking, "Whew! I’m good. I never put that much sugar in my coffee or allow my kids more than 2 teaspoons of sugar on their cereal." The tough question is, how many teaspoons of sugar are in that cookie, cake, soda, lemonade, sweetened yogurt, granola bar, ice cream or toaster pastry?

Let’s see how "good" you really are.

See How Easily Sugar Adds Up

* Percent of daily value, using the limit of 40 grams, as recommended by the USDA and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, but not yet adopted bye the FDA into the Nutrition Facts Label.

From the chart above, it’s quite clear how most Americans, and particularly teenagers, are easily consuming 3 to 4 times the recommended allowance for sugar. Whoever thought one can of soda would blow your sugar allowance for the entire day? Or that one medium (note that’s a MEDIUM) chocolate shake alone has more than twice the recommended sugar allowance for one day. Still think you were doing okay?

So what’s a person to do?

Become a savvy label reader.
Learn how to find sugar. If you’re feeling a bit surprised about your own sugar intake and wondering why it’s hard to know how much sugar is too much, don’t feel bad. Right now, take a look at a nutrition label. You’ll see "% Daily Value" for fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate and fiber. Now look at the area beside the grams of sugars. The percent of daily value is mysteriously blank. Why? Apparently, the experts could not agree on what the upper limit should be despite the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and other health groups petitioning the Food and Drug Administration in 1999 to set a "Daily Value" for sugar intake and list the amount of added sugars and the "% Daily Value" in a serving on food labels. CSPI recommended that the Daily Value (the recommended daily limit) be set at 40 grams which is the same figure recommended by the USDA. The FDA has not responded to the petition.

Until the FDA adds the "% Daily Value" for sugar to food labels, controlling your sugar intake takes a combination of both careful label reading and common sense. Simply look at the sugar content in grams. Understand that although milk, yogurt and 100-percent juices contain natural sugar, they also offer many other necessary nutrients. This is not the case with empty-calorie beverages made of refined sugars and highly sweetened cereals and cookies. So it is the sugars from these empty-calorie foods that you should keep under 40 grams for the whole day.

Tame your sweet tooth
Learn to lower your "sweet acuity," which is the level of sweetness you desire. This can be easily accomplished by gradually diluting your juice with ice, water or sparkling water; reducing the amount of sugar in your coffee from 2 heaping teaspoons to 1 level teaspoon; and topping your cereal and pancakes with fruit instead of heaping teaspoons of sugar or ladles of syrup. I always recommend taming your sweet tooth instead of merely replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners. Once you lower the level of sweetness you desire, you won’t feel deprived and you will naturally eat less sugar.

Here are a few healthy sugar habits you can live by:

1. First, examine your consumption of soft drinks. A 12-ounce can of soda contains 40 grams of sugar, equaling 10 teaspoons. This alone blows your entire sugar quota for the day! So tell your kids, "Sure you can have a soda, but that would be your sweet choice for the entire day."

2. Second, examine your consumption of fruit "drinks," "ades," and "cocktails." Many popular ‘drinks’ ‘ades’ and ‘cocktails’ contain only 5 to 10 percent juice, making them sugar water. Opt for water to quench your thirst and head out the door each day with at least one bottle.

3. Commit to buying only 100-percent juices and use a 4-ounce juice glass. Also tame your sweet tooth by diluting your juice with ice, water or sparkling water. It tastes great and will be naturally sweet with juice instead of refined, empty-calorie sugar and artificial colorings. Give it a try for one week and before you know it, your family won’t like the syrupy sweet taste of straight juice.

4. Make it easy for you and your family to eat three pieces of fresh fruit each day. Keep a large, attractive bowl of fresh fruit on your kitchen counter that makes it easy to grab and go. This will do wonders for keeping your sweet cravings down, while drenching your body with cancer-fighting phytochemicals.

5. Practice saying, "a small please." It’s the easiest way to halve the sugar and calories of anything, while still enjoying everything. And saying this often enough will soon become an invisible habit you won’t even notice.

6. Select breakfast cereals wisely. Eight grams of sugar or less per serving is recommended, plus at least 2 grams of fiber. (Ideally I like to see even more fiber.)

7. Be conscious of how often you are having doughnuts, cakes, pies, cookies, and candy. I see many a grocery cart in the checkout line with several packages of cookies plus ice cream plus soda. Set your own boundaries that are realistic for you. Perhaps choosing to have only one "sweet" item in the cart each week is plenty instead of three or four, and halving your portion and savoring it slowly. You’ll not only save money by buying half as much, you’ll still enjoy a treat often without feeling deprived.