HOUSTON – A cup of flavored yogurt might have all the sugar a woman should eat in a day, and if you add sugar and cream to your coffee, there’s no room left for more sugar.
Hamburgers aren’t sweet, but did you know the average bun has 5 grams of sugar? Add condiments like ketchup or barbecue sauce, and one sandwich might contain your whole day’s worth of sugar.
“You’re not eating a doughnut, you’re eating a hamburger but it may still have a lot of sugar in it,” dietitian Erin Gussler said
Gussler said you might even be addicted to foods containing hidden sugar.
In some studies, mice preferred sugar over addictive drugs. Therefore, Gussler said you should try swapping processed foods -- which contain a lot of hidden sugar -- with whole foods.
“Sweet potatoes, grains and things like that ..." Gussler said. “If you are going to eat sugar, try to choose a more natural version of it rather than added sugar that doesn’t have nutrients to it.”
Women should only eat 25 grams of sugar in a day and men should eat 37 grams.
“In general, if you are doing fructose, I prefer it to be a natural version of that which comes from fruit," Gussler said. "High fructose corn syrup is very concentrated at times, and in general our body processes it in the liver so if we do a high concentration of fructose it can be a little hard on the liver.”
Gussler suggested people turn to vanilla, peppermint, honey and fruit to add to foods and be in control of the kind of sugar you eat.
As you rid processed foods from your diet, make sure to eat more fats.
“Making sure that if your decreasing sugar then we are increasing some of those healthy fats: nuts and seeds and avocados,” Gussler said. “You have to run on something. You can’t cut everything out!”