According to WHO Humans should only consume 5% of free sugar from total calories. Free Sugar is added by humans in soda, processed foods flavored muesli. There are many forms of sugar out in the Food processing industry like icing sugar, corn syrup, and others. Surprisingly sugar from fruits and milk is not harmful, it does show any health adverse effect.
Why reduce free sugar, because as we are moving towards the industrial era where our food became a key to make money instead of improving health. Nowadays people are more focused on reducing fats from their food. So, the food sector came up with an idea of zero fat food products and they replaced it with sugar and salt to make food soothing to taste buds.
Let us focus on how much an adult/child should consume, taking the example of an average adult, They consume at least 2000 Cal/day, 5% of sugar means that 100 Cal’s should come from Free Sugar (4Cal per 1 gram sugar), that means an adult should only consume 25 Grams of Sugar.
Of course, Six teaspoons seems like a generous allocation when you picture spooning it out of a sugar bowl. But when you take a look at the nutrition labels of most packaged foods, numbers begin to add up incredibly quickly. For example, a one-half cup serving of flavored Muesli can contain (5-16 grams) or 4 teaspoons of sugar, If one half of a cup of regular sweetened yogurt is added to that cereal for breakfast, this can add another four teaspoons of sugar and you’ve already exceeded your recommended sugar intake by two full teaspoons before leaving the house.
DISASTER BY FOOD PROCESSING DOES NOT END HERE, now including ice cream, chips, processed juices, or even Khakhra or other Farshan, pickles and as well as in Lassi and mango juice we add a lot of free sugar and salts are added. Still, we are wondering why Diabetes patients are increasing and significantly high in India.
As an Indian, I do believe we have a sweet tooth, it is not a bad thing to have once a week, but it is bad when we consider fulfilling our cravings daily, while doing it we ignore the FREE SUGAR intake and if we kept ignoring it we will surely end up in the slum of diabetes.
What should we do????
So to avoid these problems learn to read nutrition content on the label of what you consume, Avoid consumption of Carbonated Beverages or any other flavored Soda on regular basis, try to have some fresh juice, In Breakfast Have some Regular oats with milk, dry fruits, and some fresh fruits if a person is an addict of cold drinks then start slowly replacing them with unsweetened sparkling water or carbonated water.