|
So the good folks at the Florida Department of Citrus want their voice heard, and who are we not to oblige? Just for the record, orange juice probably is, as they say, "more healthful than apple juice or grape juice."
"What worries us, and the point we're trying to make, is that when people drink orange juice like it is water, they are ingesting too much sugar. Fruit juice may have its place, but many children (and many adults) drink WAY too much juice when they should be drinking water instead."
Anyway, they write:
"What worries us, and the point we're trying to make, is that when people drink orange juice like it is water, they are ingesting too much sugar. Fruit juice may have its place, but many children (and many adults) drink WAY too much juice when they should be drinking water instead."
Anyway, they write:
Dear Sugar Stacks team,
On behalf of the Florida Department of Citrus, I am writing in response
to your recent "stack-up" about the sugar content of orange juice on
SugarStacks.com. Please allow us to share further information.
Orange juice is a convenient, naturally nutritious beverage with no
added sugars or preservatives that can be a healthy part of most diets.
In fact, its naturally occurring sugars provide the body with ready
sources of energy. One 8-ounce glass of 100 percent orange juice
delivers essential vitamins and nutrients to support good health and
counts as almost 25 percent of the USDA-recommended daily fruit and
vegetable servings, based on a 2,000-calorie diet. Research shows
orange juice is more nutrient rich than many commonly consumed 100
percent fruit juices, such as apple, grape, pineapple and prune.
But it's important to note that not all juices are created equal. To
distinguish 100% orange juice from products that contain very little
real fruit juice, compare the percent of pure juice, nutrients and
ingredients.
Please feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss in more detail.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Karen Mathis
This site isn't about dieting, It's about giving shape and form to what is hidden in the food we eat.
That said, I'm on a diet and I'm going to blog about it, for my own benefit as much as for any potential readers.
The method of my diet is simple. I count calories. Everything I eat, I write down the calorie count, keeping a running total. I limit my daily intake to 1500-1600 calories per day. No exceptions are allowed. If I cannot figure out the exact calorie count for something, I don't eat it.
Though this allows me to eat whatever I want, my general strategy is to balance protein, fat, and carbohydrates. I never eat a meal that is pure carbs or pure protein. I always make sure there is a healthy fat content to keep me satiated. So, if I eat a bowl of oatmeal, I'll have an egg along with it. I'll pick a hamburger over skinless chicken breast. I find that keeping this balance helps me from being too hungry.
That said, I'm on a diet and I'm going to blog about it, for my own benefit as much as for any potential readers.
The method of my diet is simple. I count calories. Everything I eat, I write down the calorie count, keeping a running total. I limit my daily intake to 1500-1600 calories per day. No exceptions are allowed. If I cannot figure out the exact calorie count for something, I don't eat it.
Though this allows me to eat whatever I want, my general strategy is to balance protein, fat, and carbohydrates. I never eat a meal that is pure carbs or pure protein. I always make sure there is a healthy fat content to keep me satiated. So, if I eat a bowl of oatmeal, I'll have an egg along with it. I'll pick a hamburger over skinless chicken breast. I find that keeping this balance helps me from being too hungry.
From the cradle we're trained to expect sugar, lots of sugar, in almost everything we eat. It's not enough that most children grow up never eating peanut butter without the accompaniment of jelly. Even the peanut butter itself gets sugar added for a double-whammy of unnecessary sugar.
People cannot even imagine what simple, unadulterated peanut butter might be like. They have never had the chance to taste its complex richness, to appreciate the true flavor of roasted peanuts. They aren't even aware that they might be missing something. Anyone who does take the time to experience it would never go back to the sugar-laden varieties; they'd miss the real taste too much.
Even a spice like cinnamon is so often coupled with sugar that people cannot imagine enjoying it by itself. But such an aromatic and versatile spice should be used, and appreciated, on its own. Take a bowl of plain oatmeal, add a healthy spoonful of cinnamon, some chopped nuts, and maybe some sliced apple. Eat that for a week. Then go back and try one of those premade oatmeal-sugar packets. You won't be able to stand the treacly sweetness. You'll miss the FLAVOR too much.
People cannot even imagine what simple, unadulterated peanut butter might be like. They have never had the chance to taste its complex richness, to appreciate the true flavor of roasted peanuts. They aren't even aware that they might be missing something. Anyone who does take the time to experience it would never go back to the sugar-laden varieties; they'd miss the real taste too much.
Even a spice like cinnamon is so often coupled with sugar that people cannot imagine enjoying it by itself. But such an aromatic and versatile spice should be used, and appreciated, on its own. Take a bowl of plain oatmeal, add a healthy spoonful of cinnamon, some chopped nuts, and maybe some sliced apple. Eat that for a week. Then go back and try one of those premade oatmeal-sugar packets. You won't be able to stand the treacly sweetness. You'll miss the FLAVOR too much.
On our vegetables page, we point out the sugar content of carrots, along with beets and corn. We received many angry emails about this, suggesting that we're some kind of sugar fearmongers scaring people away from eating vegetable.
This got us to thinking, how can we illustrate visually the sugar content of a vegetable like carrots? Carrots do have sugar; anyone who's tried a low-carb diet realizes this. But things need to be put into perspective a bit. So we've come up with carrot stacks:
We think the visuals clarify the situation pretty clearly.
Got a little email from Neil Leinwand, VP of Marketing of Kraft Foods. He is mad at us. Hopping steaming mad!
Seems like we were mistaken about Capri Sun on our beverages page. We wrote:
"Basically a bag of water and high fructose corn syrup."
This was incorrect. We have corrected it to say:
"Basically a bag of water and sugar."
Here is his complete email:
To whom it may concern,
Your calories and grams of sugar with respect to Capri Sun Pacific Cooler are correct. Your reference to High Fructose Corn Syrup is not. There is no HFCS in Capri Sun as we reformulated the brand well over a year ago, moving to sugar and with 25% fewer grams than previously existed of HFCS. So if you are going to denigrate our brand (no reference to the short list of ingredients without any artificial colors/flavors/preservatives), I would ask that you at least get your facts straight.
Seems like we were mistaken about Capri Sun on our beverages page. We wrote:
"Basically a bag of water and high fructose corn syrup."
This was incorrect. We have corrected it to say:
"Basically a bag of water and sugar."
Here is his complete email:
To whom it may concern,
Your calories and grams of sugar with respect to Capri Sun Pacific Cooler are correct. Your reference to High Fructose Corn Syrup is not. There is no HFCS in Capri Sun as we reformulated the brand well over a year ago, moving to sugar and with 25% fewer grams than previously existed of HFCS. So if you are going to denigrate our brand (no reference to the short list of ingredients without any artificial colors/flavors/preservatives), I would ask that you at least get your facts straight.
It started with Snackwells. Now grocery aisles are crowded with packages of cookies and snacks boasting "Reduced Fat" and "Only 100 Calories". We could discuss a lot of issues concerning the marketing of these products, but since we're sugar stackers, we're going to stick to what we know.
See our article on "Low Fat" Snacks
Why stack up the sugar in reduced fat foods? After all, they're not making any claims about reducing sugar. Well, we were curious. We wondered if low fat foods might contain added sugar to compensate for flavor lost with fat reduction. In the products we looked at, this wasn't the case, but we did make some interesting discoveries when comparing nutrition labels.
Most low fat products still contain quite a bit of sugar. No big surprise there. However, what did surprise us was some of the calorie counts. Products promoted as "sensible snacking" or calorie limited sometimes had calorie counts that weren't that far off from a serving of the real deal.
This may seem obvious, but many people may not think it through, equating low fat with "healthier" or "better" in general. We're just pointing out that a product with reduced fat content won't necessarily differ on all fronts. Low fat snacks usually contain about the same amount of sugar as the classic versions, as well as a comparable or sometimes greater amount of carbohydrates.
There are certainly legitimate reasons for limiting fat intake, and with snack foods, which often contain trans fats and hydrogenated oils, lower fat isn't a bad idea. On the other hand, if your primary goal is simply to reduce calories in your diet, you might want to compare labels before you toss those reduced fat cookies into your cart and see exactly what you're getting.
See our article on "Low Fat" Snacks
Why stack up the sugar in reduced fat foods? After all, they're not making any claims about reducing sugar. Well, we were curious. We wondered if low fat foods might contain added sugar to compensate for flavor lost with fat reduction. In the products we looked at, this wasn't the case, but we did make some interesting discoveries when comparing nutrition labels.
Most low fat products still contain quite a bit of sugar. No big surprise there. However, what did surprise us was some of the calorie counts. Products promoted as "sensible snacking" or calorie limited sometimes had calorie counts that weren't that far off from a serving of the real deal.
This may seem obvious, but many people may not think it through, equating low fat with "healthier" or "better" in general. We're just pointing out that a product with reduced fat content won't necessarily differ on all fronts. Low fat snacks usually contain about the same amount of sugar as the classic versions, as well as a comparable or sometimes greater amount of carbohydrates.
There are certainly legitimate reasons for limiting fat intake, and with snack foods, which often contain trans fats and hydrogenated oils, lower fat isn't a bad idea. On the other hand, if your primary goal is simply to reduce calories in your diet, you might want to compare labels before you toss those reduced fat cookies into your cart and see exactly what you're getting.
We are only human. We make mistakes.
We appreciate your feedback because it helps us find, and fix, our mistakes. We have thick skins, too, so if you want to hurl abuse at us, along with corrections, feel free. We accept it as punishments for our transgressions against you, our readers.
The Dairy Queen Butterfinger Blizzard was completely wrong; it had the data for the 40 oz. Coca-Cola Slurpee. There were also typos/errors on the unsweetened apple sauce, the orange juice, the regular Snickers, and the McDonald's milk shake. We've tried to fix all of these errors. If you find more, please drop us a line.
We appreciate your feedback because it helps us find, and fix, our mistakes. We have thick skins, too, so if you want to hurl abuse at us, along with corrections, feel free. We accept it as punishments for our transgressions against you, our readers.
The Dairy Queen Butterfinger Blizzard was completely wrong; it had the data for the 40 oz. Coca-Cola Slurpee. There were also typos/errors on the unsweetened apple sauce, the orange juice, the regular Snickers, and the McDonald's milk shake. We've tried to fix all of these errors. If you find more, please drop us a line.
We've gotten the most feedback about our fruit section. Things like: Fruit doesn't contain table sugar, so it's misleading to use sugar cubes to show the sugar content. Fruit is natural and healthy, how dare you compare it with Pop Tarts!
First, please check out the article in Wikipedia on fructose, specifically, the table of sugar content of various fruits and vegetables. We are not chemists, however, so we will leave the further research up to you.
The point we were trying to make, however, is that all fruits aren't the same. Some have more sugar than others. An apple may not, in fact, be quite as good for you as a strawberry. Eating fruits, even sugary ones, may have other benefits that offset the amount of sugar they contain. That very well may be the case. But we still think it's important to be clear on just how much sugar we're talking about.
And don't get us started on faux fruits: fruit juice, smoothies, jam, sugar-fortified apple sauce, fruit rolls, etc. Just because a product has some fruit content, or looks like it has fruit inside, or is derived from a fruit, doesn't mean you should put it in your body.
First, please check out the article in Wikipedia on fructose, specifically, the table of sugar content of various fruits and vegetables. We are not chemists, however, so we will leave the further research up to you.
The point we were trying to make, however, is that all fruits aren't the same. Some have more sugar than others. An apple may not, in fact, be quite as good for you as a strawberry. Eating fruits, even sugary ones, may have other benefits that offset the amount of sugar they contain. That very well may be the case. But we still think it's important to be clear on just how much sugar we're talking about.
And don't get us started on faux fruits: fruit juice, smoothies, jam, sugar-fortified apple sauce, fruit rolls, etc. Just because a product has some fruit content, or looks like it has fruit inside, or is derived from a fruit, doesn't mean you should put it in your body.
So we've seen a lot of complaints (both in email and comments on other sites) on how we use sugar cubes to demonstrate the amount of sugar in products that don't actually contain sugar but instead use high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
We do actually have a disclaimer on the home page discussing this issue. To quote:
1. The nutritional labeling on products doesn't break the sugar content down into different types. So in many cases, even if we wanted to differentiate the types of sugar, we couldn't.
2. The whole point of this site is to dramatically illustrate how much sugar you are consuming when you put that junk into your mouth. Judging by the response the site is getting, it seems to have worked! We won't apologize for that.
3. All types of sugar may not be created equal, but a lot of the nutritional science here is unsettled, to say the least. Whether a grape is better for you than a piece of candy may not be in dispute, but many would say that a sugar-laden fruit like a grape isn't nearly as good for you as something like a blueberry or strawberry. Even if there is a qualitative difference between classes, there are quantitative differences within classes that we wanted to highlight.
4. Despite possible differences, high fructose corn syrup has A LOT in common with sugar. The illustrations are still valid, even if finer distinctions might be even more informative.
We do actually have a disclaimer on the home page discussing this issue. To quote:
Note: We don't differentiate between different types of sugar - i.e., sucrose, fructose, cane sugar, corn syrup, honey, etc., although there are differences in how these sugars are metabolized. We just used cubes of white sugar as a visual aid.Now in our defense:
1. The nutritional labeling on products doesn't break the sugar content down into different types. So in many cases, even if we wanted to differentiate the types of sugar, we couldn't.
2. The whole point of this site is to dramatically illustrate how much sugar you are consuming when you put that junk into your mouth. Judging by the response the site is getting, it seems to have worked! We won't apologize for that.
3. All types of sugar may not be created equal, but a lot of the nutritional science here is unsettled, to say the least. Whether a grape is better for you than a piece of candy may not be in dispute, but many would say that a sugar-laden fruit like a grape isn't nearly as good for you as something like a blueberry or strawberry. Even if there is a qualitative difference between classes, there are quantitative differences within classes that we wanted to highlight.
4. Despite possible differences, high fructose corn syrup has A LOT in common with sugar. The illustrations are still valid, even if finer distinctions might be even more informative.
We launched this site a few days ago and the response has been overwhelming. You're crashing our server with your desire to see stacks of sugar cubes!
We don't think of this site as a joke, though. Most people have no idea what they are putting in their (and their children's) bodies. We're not going to stop developing this site, with this blog, with more articles and features, so please bookmark us, add our RSS feed, and keep up-to-date with our goings on.
We don't think of this site as a joke, though. Most people have no idea what they are putting in their (and their children's) bodies. We're not going to stop developing this site, with this blog, with more articles and features, so please bookmark us, add our RSS feed, and keep up-to-date with our goings on.
Would you eat a stack of 16 sugar cubes?
A label can tell you there are 39 grams of sugar in your soda, but what does that much sugar look like?
 39g 65g 108gYikes! That's a lot of sugar! We've used regular sugar cubes (4 grams of sugar each) to show how the sugars in your favorite foods literally stack up, gram for gram. Compare foods, find out where sugar is hiding, and see how much of the sweet stuff you're really eating. | ||||
| ||||
Source:sugarstacks.com
No comments:
Post a Comment