Sugar in food

[Roland Rat]

It's crazy how much sugar is put into some food! I fancied a small treat at lunch so bought a gluten and wheat free choclate and orange crispy bar from Waitrose at lunchtime. Tried it, disgusting, far too sweet. Checked out the label - each 100g of crispy bar contains 50.3g sugar! That's ridiculous! How can it possibly need to be 50% sugar?!

 

[fatandfast]

It's crazy how much sugar is put into some food! I fancied a small treat at lunch so bought a gluten and wheat free choclate and orange crispy bar from Waitrose at lunchtime. Tried it, disgusting, far too sweet. Checked out the label - each 100g of crispy bar contains 50.3g sugar! That's ridiculous! How can it possibly need to be 50% sugar?!

This is a stumper to me also..People are going to right away say I am full of chit..but your body doesn't know the difference between types of sugar. Sugar is in sausage,vegan patties,bread..everything and they use fructose because it's so cheap and easy to blend. I went to the store and saw some pre-sliced fruit..looked good for the train ride to Boston..the fruit packed in it's own juice had sugar added.wtf? Are we really that addicted??does sugar need to be the 5th ingredient in red sauce?

 

[Hmmmmm]

It is ridiculous. A few months ago I had this discussion with a friend about foods that contain sugar. I can't remember what at the moment, but we started pulling things out of my kitchen cabinets and were amazed at some of the things with sugar in them that we would never have suspected.

I imagine one day we will be going to the store and you buy sugar and the ingredients for sugar will read: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar syrup, etc, etc.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Food Fun Facts!

Sugar varieties are in most manufactured food for a couple of reasons.

1. It's a cheap tasty filler. Most processed food have ingredients whose job it is to create mass/weight. Fillers! Sugar is a good one. Good mouth feel too. It makes food both low in price and still have some substance.

2. Most processed food is awful without some large amounts of sodium and/or sugars. Especially true for special categories like gluten free and vegan.

3. If a processed food had any flavor, it would be much more expensive without the fillers, salts/sugars. Unfortunately, price is not a way to discriminate between high quality and low quality ingredients.

Your food choices get kind of narrow if you discriminate using low sodium and lower sugar values. It's out there, but hard to find. For us Yankees, Whole Foods used to be pretty good about this. The buyers are squeezing out what little nutrition was left in their manufactured products in order to get a low price.

One is practically forced onto a fruit/veggies/make it yourself diet if they look at labels.

Regarding sugar in red sauce, they start with the worst tomatoes and then cook them to death before jarring, canning. They need sugar to give the red stuff passing as a sauce any flavor. Spices are very expensive, so not many in there. You are all better off buying a can of peeled san marzano tomatoes and cooking them while the water is boiling for your pasta. Throw the garlic, some olive oil, and herbs in at the end. Not before.

Compare the cost, you'll see cooking a can of san marzano's is about twice the price thanks to fillers. San Marzanos are more than twice as good, so it's easy for me to justify the cost increase.

 

[brianf7]

It's crazy how much sugar is put into some food! I fancied a small treat at lunch so bought a gluten and wheat free choclate and orange crispy bar from Waitrose at lunchtime. Tried it, disgusting, far too sweet. Checked out the label - each 100g of crispy bar contains 50.3g sugar! That's ridiculous! How can it possibly need to be 50% sugar?!

Not only sugar but salt also just as bad you either eat it or go hungery
nothing wrong with it but you need slow carbs not the fast ones in refined sugar.

 

[Anonymous]

Regarding sugar in red sauce, they start with the worst tomatoes and then cook them to death before jarring, canning. They need sugar to give the red stuff passing as a sauce any flavor. Spices are very expensive, so not many in there. You are all better off buying a can of peeled san marzano tomatoes and cooking them while the water is boiling for your pasta. Throw the garlic, some olive oil, and herbs in at the end. Not before. .

red sauce... you guys call it ketchup

 

[Polyarmour]

Sugar varieties are in most manufactured food for a couple of reasons.

1. It's a cheap tasty filler. Most processed food have ingredients whose job it is to create mass/weight. Fillers! Sugar is a good one. Good mouth feel too. It makes food both low in price and still have some substance.

2. Most processed food is awful without some large amounts of sodium and/or sugars. Especially true for special categories like gluten free and vegan.

3. If a processed food had any flavor, it would be much more expensive without the fillers, salts/sugars. Unfortunately, price is not a way to discriminate between high quality and low quality ingredients.

Your food choices get kind of narrow if you discriminate using low sodium and lower sugar values. It's out there, but hard to find. For us Yankees, Whole Foods used to be pretty good about this. The buyers are squeezing out what little nutrition was left in their manufactured products in order to get a low price.

One is practically forced onto a fruit/veggies/make it yourself diet if they look at labels.

Regarding sugar in red sauce, they start with the worst tomatoes and then cook them to death before jarring, canning. They need sugar to give the red stuff passing as a sauce any flavor. Spices are very expensive, so not many in there. You are all better off buying a can of peeled san marzano tomatoes and cooking them while the water is boiling for your pasta. Throw the garlic, some olive oil, and herbs in at the end. Not before.

Compare the cost, you'll see cooking a can of san marzano's is about twice the price thanks to fillers. San Marzanos are more than twice as good, so it's easy for me to justify the cost increase.

4. Sugar is also a preservative. Even bacteria won't eat sugar.

 

[cawright1375]

I recently made the decision to give up sugar except on special occassions (birthday or wedding cakes, holidays) or during work outs (sports drinks, gels, etc). Also sugars found naturally such as in fruit and veg is okay. As part of this I also cut down a lot on my bread intake too. I was amazed over the course of two weeks, how just eliminating sugar and maintaining my regular workout routine how much weight I lost. I'd been losing weight since the first of the year, but this was a big jump. Prior to this the wife & I would make certain to avoid HFCS whenever possible.

I'm pretty sure there will be times where I fall off the wagon because I love sweets, but the benefits have been so fast and visible that it should be easy to keep to my decision.

 

[Rip:30]

4. Sugar is also a preservative. Even bacteria won't eat sugar.

LOL. Not even close.

 

[DirtyWorks]

red sauce... you guys call it ketchup

Haha, I was thinking tomato sauce for pasta. Tons of sugar and/or sodium in manufactured sauces.

 

[Polyarmour]

LOL. Not even close.

I keep sugar in my pantry, personally I never eat it, so it sits there. Two years later I have a guest who wants sugar in their coffee so I get it out and it looks the same as when I put it in there two years before. Not too many foodstuffs you can do that with. McDonalds cheese comes close though apparently.

 

[Rip:30]

I keep sugar in my pantry, personally I never eat it, so it sits there. Two years later I have a guest who wants sugar in their coffee so I get it out and it looks the same as when I put it in there two years before. Not too many foodstuffs you can do that with. McDonalds cheese comes close though apparently.

It's because of the lack of water, in both cases.

If you dry out mangos or hamburger enough you won't get any life on it either.

Try adding some H2O to your sugar in the pantry.

 

[Polyarmour]

It's because of the lack of water, in both cases.

If you dry out mangos or hamburger enough you won't get any life on it either.

Try adding some H2O to your sugar in the pantry.

Ok I'll add water and even fruit to the sugar and call it jam. It still lasts.

 

[Rip:30]

Ok I'll add water and even fruit to the sugar and call it jam. It still lasts.

Add a few more drops of H2O.

Dry sugar, jam, honey, and venison jerky don't rot because the water activity is too low (but above zero), not because they aren't good energy sources. Even the most resilient bacteria usually cease to function at matric water activities below 0.88 and osmotic water activities below 0.74 (waterpotential 17 MPa and 41 MPa, respectively) [Kieft, 2002].

 

[Tapeworm]

Is THAT why my half drunk gatorade bottles can grow a very healthy looking mold?

 

[Hawkwood]

There was a documentary series on UK TV a couple of years ago about the food industry. One of the programmes revealed that a famous UK chef was sponsored by the sugar industry. It then showed how this chef kept pushing sugar in many of his recipes both on the TV and in books, even when sugar would not normally be an ingredient.

 

[fatandfast]

watch this and your life will be changed forever

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765849/

 

[Polyarmour]

Add a few more drops of H2O.

Dry sugar, jam, honey, and venison jerky don't rot because the water activity is too low (but above zero), not because they aren't good energy sources. Even the most resilient bacteria usually cease to function at matric water activities below 0.88 and osmotic water activities below 0.74 (waterpotential 17 MPa and 41 MPa, respectively) [Kieft, 2002].

Jam doesn't rot because sugar preserves the fruit not because of the lack of water. Jam is full of water. Sugar IS a preservative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation

 

[L29205]

Jam doesn't rot because sugar preserves the fruit not because of the lack of water. Jam is full of water. Sugar IS a preservative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation

But what is the process of the preservation. It is the lack of available water for the bacteria. Jam does not have enough water for the bateria. It does have enough for mold however.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-03/952573055.Mi.r.html

 

[Rip:30]

Jam doesn't rot because sugar preserves the fruit not because of the lack of water. Jam is full of water. Sugar IS a preservative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservation

What are you talking about? Sugar is a solute that lowers the water availability in a solution. If you add enough of any solute to a solution you will eventually go below the point of enough water for life to function. There's no toxic or inhibitory function of sugar as you've suggested--except as a function of concentration. In fact it's a highly sought after and preferred energy source for heterotrophic bacteria. Feeds right in to central carbohydrate pathways in bacteria just like it does in humans (mitochondria are ancient bacteria, FYI). Don't be ridiculous, check a gen bio book out--glucose is a fundamental building block of life. Plants make it from C02 + light and we eat it and breath out CO2.

Or if you don't believe every scientist in the world, add some water to the jam and leave it out--bacteria and fungi central guaranteed.