With summer in full swing, some are encouraging "sugar detox" as a means to better fit into those swimsuits.
Fads and gimmicks—even when encouraged by a high-profile morning show, or lifestyle magazines, to boost readership and viewership—take away from proven, practical and sustainable methods of losing weight and only serve to drive the unfounded hysteria surrounding sugar.
The term "detox" itself implies that sugar is toxic—and this inflammatory language misleads consumers. In reality, sugar has been used by our grandmothers and their grandmothers and safely consumed for thousands of years. The sugar in your sugar bowl, which is 100 percent natural sucrose, is the same sucrose in an apple or peach—implying sugar is toxic is ludicrous.
And, despite what some would have you believe, Americans are not all of a sudden consuming dramatically increased amounts of sugar. Data published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which has been monitoring our food intake since 1909, shows total caloric sweetener consumption is virtually the same as it was in 1970. Americans consumed 23.7 teaspoons per person per day in 1970 and a little more than 24 teaspoons in 2012. The fact continuing to be overlooked is that USDA data also show that Americans are consuming 425 more calories per person per day than they did in 1970! And, of these 425 additional calories only 38 are from caloric sweetener intake.
There's no proof that cutting sugar will yield any benefit if overall calories are not reduced. In the 1990s it was "cut fat" and yet we got fatter because people may have "cut fat" but didn’t "cut calories." Now it’s a focus on sugar that is derailing us from the goal of reducing total caloric intake.
There are more effective, sustainable and pleasant ways to reach weight loss goals than depriving yourself of a single nutrient—like sugar. The science is clear—sugar, when consumed in moderation, can be an important component of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.
Source: www.sugar.org