Have a sweet tooth but want to give up on the added sugars that you consume? Is quitting sugar quite challenging for you? Let’s begin by understanding more about ‘sugars’. 

Sugar is a carbohydrate, (a disaccharide, which needs to be broken down into glucose to be available for our body) found naturally in many foods and drinks. But it can also be an additive in many food products and drinks. Food products such as dairy products, vegetables, and fruits, contain sugars naturally which give them a sweet taste. The natural forms of sugars are mainly sucrose, fructose, galactose, lactose and maltose. (Fructose is found in fruits, lactose in milk.) What we commonly call “table sugar” is sucrose which is extracted from sugar cane juice and then further processed before it comes to your table. 

Many foods that contain natural sugars such as fruits, dry fruits have other health benefits and so they form an important part of a healthy diet. On the other hand, foods with added sugar such as soft drinks, fruit drinks, flavored yogurts, breakfast cereals, cookies, cakes, candy, and most processed foods have no nutritional value. Our body digests such foods very quickly which in turn can cause health problems over a period of time because of excessive consumption. "Basically, the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk for heart disease," says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health..

Manufacturers of food products such as cereals and cake and some drinks tend to add sugar to increase the palatability of those products. And it is this “added sugar” which has become an ingredient of concern in diets. 

Evidence suggests, eating too much sugar can cause :

• Obesity and related disorders like heart diseases, diabetes, liver and kidney disorders.

• Poor oral health.

• Harm to the hormone that regulates satiety and hunger resulting in weight gain due to excessive calorie consumption.

As stated above, excessive intake of sugar can have a negative impact on our health. Hence, ideally, the recommended sugar intake is about 1-2 tsp/ day (i.e 5-10gms/ day). In order to cut down on sugar intake, adapting to healthy eating practices such as consuming more whole, unprocessed food is the way forward. However, if you are among those who are looking for weight loss but can not give up on sugar, you might consider including  artificial sweeteners or other sugar substitutes in your diet which can be low in calories at the same time giving you the right amount of sweetness you are looking for.

To know more about sugar substitutes, refer to this article