 Hi, I'm Chef Robin. Welcome to Hands in the Kitchen Workshop. Today we're going to be speaking about sugar. Sugar is a spice that we all have in our kitchen. We're going to find out what is sugar. Talk a little bit about the history of sugar, how it came to be in those packages on the grocery store shelf. The benefits, if there are benefits to table sugar, the harmful effects of table sugar, then majorly speaking a lot or directing our attention to eating less sugar, sugar alternatives, and then natural sugar in fruit and vegetables. So what exactly is sugar to begin with? Sugar is a soluble, and that's a really important word, soluble. It's a soluble, sweet, crystalline substance that comes from plants. The two plants that we get the majority of our sugar from are sugar beets and sugar cane. Two plant forms that have the word sugar right in front of them, so you know they're chock full. Soluble means that it dissolves in a liquid, and that's going to be important when we talk about how sugar affects us in our body. So I have some sugar here. I have just a little bit of plain water right here, and you're going to see that without heat, without any kind of motion other than a little turbulence with this chopstick, the sugar is going to dissolve. So not all spices do that, not all substances do that, but because sugar does that, we really need to bear in mind how it affects us once we get it into our body, so we'll talk about that after a while. But soluble sugar, crystalline structure. We also want to discuss added sugar, because in addition to sugar being present in all fruits and vegetables, added sugar is usually a sugar carbohydrate that's added to food and beverages during processing or at the table. Added just means more sugar coming in. So that should give you some idea of what sugar is, where it comes from, where it comes from, and what we need to give attention to. So if we talk about the history of sugar, just give us a little background. Pavement, we're probably eating sugar. Sugar cane grows like bamboo. They probably were snapping it off and chowing it down to get some energy to go to that next mammoth hunt or whatever they were up to. But cavemen were probably eating sugar. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks and the Romans in ancient times were using it to take care of stomach ailments. The Crusaders brought it back from India, where it was being cultivated, and they called it sweet salt. That's how it came to Europe. Once it got to Europe, the country of Spain started to cultivate it and manage it as a trade product. When it became a trade product, then it came to the New World with the Portuguese. First it went to Brazil, then it went to Barbados, the Dominican Republic, those islands in the Bermudas. And really, that's where our slave trade came from. Our slave trade didn't start in the Americas because of cotton, although that's what sometimes we think of slaves on cotton plantations, but actually it was sugar because sugar is very labor-intensive to grow, and at that time it was also very labor-intensive to process. So it was called white gold because it was just valued so much, but it also had implications for that part of our dark part of history, the slave trade. Sugar began to be processed and cultivated in Louisiana in the 1700s. Then in the 1800s, domino sugar, which is still on our shelves today, was developed by two brothers in New York City and started to be refined in New York. Sacrine was introduced in the later part of the 1800s as the first sugar alternative. And then just last year, dominoes created a new product on the shelf called golden sugar. And golden sugar is in response to people being alarmed about the health effects of white sugar. Golden sugar is not quite as refined as white sugar, but less refined than brown sugar or molasses. So golden sugar is still sugar, still has all the qualities of sugar. It just has not been bleached white. So just to be aware, even though they're saying it's a little bit better, it may not be better. Let's talk about the benefits and the harmful effects of sugar. So sugar, as we know it on our shelf, that white soluble crystalline structure gives us energy. It's really all it does. It has no nutrient value whatsoever. It has zero minerals. It has zero vitamins. It has zero good stuff, fibers, anything else that we might need that our body could make use of other than this little fuel that goes into our bodies. When we talked about it being soluble, when we do ingest white sugar, say we put it into our coffee or our iced tea or on top of our cereal, it immediately becomes available to every single cell in our body. Our body is not particular about which cell it goes to. All of the cells in our body absorb this sugar, immediately get a fuel burst from this sugar, and then almost as immediately dissipates, and we crash from that sugar. That's why we're on this cycle of early sugars, mornings, snacks, more sugar at lunch, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, trying to maintain that energy burst that we got when we first had. So it's a dangerous product because it kind of controls our mind into what we think we need, and it controls our body by craving more and more and more. It's an addictive product, actually. Too much of it, as we know, can lead to obesity, can lead to heart disease, because our bodies are also, our systems are older and aging. It has a hard time regulating in our blood, so we might get high blood pressure from too much sugar, and we can, with too much, become diabetic, which is a big problem. So where we get that energy burst is a good thing, but all these other items that sugar brings when we have too much are not good things. And the thing that we want to remember, most of all, is that every plant and vegetable has natural sugar in it. So adding more table sugar is just sugar on sugar. So just to remember that. Let's talk now about too much, how much is too much? And this is the value that people are always like, really, that's all I get a day, because the value of sugar, fat, salt is almost always microscopically smaller than we think we need. And for women, six teaspoons is the recommended daily allowance of sugar. That translates to 25 grams and 100 calories. And the reason I have grams and calories on this chart is because when you look at nutrition labels, usually they're in grams or calories. So you can't always look for teaspoons on that label to tell you how much sugar is in that product, or how much sugar is added to that product. So I have measured out for you six teaspoons for women, and six teaspoons and nine teaspoons for men, just so that you have some idea of how, and to me, it seems an incredible amount of sugar. But when we start looking at grocery store products, and we see how much sugar is actually added in, it's not going to be that much. So this is six teaspoons for an adult woman. This is nine teaspoons for an adult man. Looks like a lot of sugar, correct? That is what our body asks of us every day. Remember, we get sucrose natural sugars from every plant and vegetable that we eat. So we don't necessarily need this white crystalline granular substance in addition to other sugars, but most people do, or do use that in their diet. If we try to think about coming away from so much sugar in our diet, we want to start at the very get-go, right at the top of the day, and avoid that sugary breakfast, because if we start with that sugary breakfast, it kind of sets the tone for the rest of the day. Saying that, if you make a change in your diet, do it in a moderate fashion. It's very important that you don't all of a sudden cut out all sugar, cut out all salt, cut out all fat. Your body's going to be like, what? What's going on? You need to take time, be deliberate, be disciplined, and moderate in your changes. Dramatic changes affect your body dramatically, and also, more often than not, that dramatic change is not going to be successful. You're going to get lightheaded, you're going to be tired, you're not going to feel good, and that will not encourage you to keep pulling back on sugar, salt, fat, whatever it is that you're trying to use less of. Again, be disciplined in your approach, follow doctor's advice, but you can take control. Avoiding that sugary breakfast, instead of having that heavily sugared cereal with more sugar on it, or the lactose sugar in a dairy product, have oatmeal and berries, have a whole grain toast with jam, have plain yogurt with whole fruit, or poached eggs. The farther we get away from the raw product, the farther we get away from this apple right here with its natural sugars, to this apple juice, or to this granola bar, the more and more processing that this product goes through affects the benefits that we get from eating it. So when we eat this, our sugar comes with fiber, it comes with vitamins, it comes with nutrients, it takes our body longer to digest it, it takes our blood cells longer to make use of that fuel, the availability is timed out so that we get our energy boost over the time of that digestive process. When it's diluted in a liquid form, it's almost again like putting sugar right into your drink, right into your cereal. If you see this word right here, apple juice from concentrate, again, anything that's concentrated means the total amount of that sugar is just high because of a concentrated nature of something. And also this delivery system is immediate to your blood cells, to all your cells, as far as the sugar delivery system. And then when you get to this for breakfast, and you look at oats, which is a good thing, because this is an oat bar, the very second ingredient is sugar. The second ingredient on a food label means that that is second in size of ingredients of all of the ingredients in there. So that's a pretty high level of sugar in this product. So have a healthier breakfast to start your day. So if you don't have your healthy breakfast, by 10 o'clock you want a ho ho. So instead of a ho ho, go for something that's a little bit healthier. You can have trail mix. Even trail mix with chocolate chips in it is a healthier alternative than a ho ho. Have harbore of eggs. Fresh fruit, again, is the best. Every plant, every fruit, every vegetable has its own natural sugars available for us. We need to take advantage of it. Grapes, popcorn, harbore of eggs, nuts, all manners of healthier snacks than just maybe that granola bar. One of the healthiest things that you can do is to swap out that soda. The soda is just another, it's just a vehicle for immediate transference of sugar into our system. And it gives us that immediate boom bust of energy. But again, then you will just crash again. So instead of a sugary soda, enjoy just water, put mint in your water, put lemon slices in your water, orange slices, cucumber slices, anything that can make it a little bit more exciting for you and flavorful for you. Have seltzer water if you like bubbles. It's fun. It's enjoyable. Seltzer waters come in all kinds of fruit flavors as well. Or herbal or fruit peas. So just try and delegate your sodas to a smaller number every day until you're not drinking or reliant on soda. When you get to the point where you're ready to just toss that table sugar but still want other sweet in your diet, again, everything that we eat that's in a fruit or a vegetable form has its own natural sugars. But if they are not enough for you, there are sugar alternatives. Honey, maple syrup, seed oil, molasses. All of these are sugar alternatives that still provide calories. They do have some trace amounts of minerals and nutrients to give our bodies as well. But you still need to be moderate with their uses. Apple sauce, if you're baking, is a good replacement for sugar. A lot of bakers will do half sugar, half apple sauce in their zucchini bread and their banana breads and are delighted still with the end product. Extracts also are tasty and an alternative to use instead of just straight sugar in baking. Stevia is relatively new. Stevia comes from a plant. It's in a powdered form. It dissolves in water so it's soluble as well. It is very, very sweet but it has zero calories. So it is a product that some people are finding to be their sugar replacement. Just be aware that it also can have that jump, that spike in energy depending on how much you use but it is a little bit healthier for you than just regular table sugar. This is a new product on the market called agave nectar. It's relatively expensive. It comes from the agave plant. Nectar is like a concentrated syrup. Some people are using this. It does have some health benefits other than just being sweet. It does have calories. It does have some small amount of fiber so whereas sugar has none of those, it is a slight bit better for you than just regular table sugar. Again though we really want to concentrate on eating plants, eating fruits and vegetables that have a high level of fruitess in them to get our sweetness from them. So let's talk about that for a moment. Some vegetables even have the word sweet in front of them. So for example, there is the sweet potato. There is the sweet bell pepper. There are sweet vedalia onions. There are sweet sugar snaps. So it's just another reminder of the fact that from eating a varied diet with various fruits and vegetables you are going to get the sugar that your body needs for energy. It's just going to be in a better delivery system because it's going to bring you minerals, it's going to bring you nutrients, it's going to bring you fibers and it's going to bring you that delayed timeline of the energy being relegated out to your system to use instead of just immediate boom with the table sugar. So fruits as well, apples and pears and peaches, high in fruitess, a great sugar alternative for and also fiber, vitamins, nutrients, sweet grapes, grape for snacking, the banana, very high in vitamin K which is also good for you and then berries which are very adaptable for snacking on for having with breakfast. So all in all, there are all manners of different food items that you can obtain sugar or sucrose in your system or for your system to benefit from much healthier than just using table sugar. The statistic that I read that was incredibly alarming when I was doing all this research on sugar was that Americans tend to eat 60 pounds of sugar a year. The average adult American eats 60 pounds of sugar a year and to put that in perspective that is six 10 pound bowling balls. So just or six 10 pound bags of sugar, that is just incredible to me. So it is out there and it's kind of blind and wait for you. We're going to talk now about grocery shopping which is so difficult actually if you're trying to eat a clean diet. It's incredible catch 22 to me that by the time we get older and we've worked hard and maybe we don't want to cook everything for ourselves every day that the package on the shelf that we can afford is not healthy for us to eat. It's really hard and it's so pervasive in our food system. I just want to show you a few examples of things that really were surprising to me as far as containing sugar and now you really have to become a label detective. Okay this is a big chart I understand but the FDA which is the Food and Drug Administration has allowed food manufacturers 38 different ways of saying sugar on a label. 38 different ways. So you may see the word sugar but you may see something else that's completely different and yet it is sugar. It's just a different name for it. You really need to be aware of any word that ends in O-S-E. Dextrose, maltose, lactose, glucose, fructose, sucrose that is all a form of sugar. I fructose corn syrup. I fructose right there corn syrup. We know that corn on the cob sweet corn on the cob we love it. It's been developed into a syrup and it's almost used in so many products and it's not good for you at all because they use too much of it. It becomes something that our taste buds get used to we want it we would do more of it it's not it's an alarming thing that it's in so many foods. Fruit juice concentrate again anything that's concentrated fruit is full of sugar so if you concentrate it more it's just another way to get sugar into that product. Modified corn starch again it's just another term for sugar and there are more and more and more I didn't list them all but believe me so many products on the shelf if they don't say no sugar sometimes are going to or more times than not are going to have some kind of sugar added to them they feel like the American palate is just demanding it and possibly we are um when you become a food detect a food label detective you're going to want to look at the list of ingredients the ingredients are labeled or the ingredients are in line of the largest amount to the smallest amount so if sugar is in the first five ingredients it's going to be an issue for that product or it could be an issue if you are sugar sensitive that maybe you will want to look for something where it's down farther. If you look at the nutrition facts label which almost every product is required to have now the first thing they're going to tell you is the serving size this is not an RDA determined figure this is figured on what people typically eat so saying we are talking about crackers and on this one it says six crackers is a typical serving size on this one it says 16 crackers are typical serving size the reason that's important is because every other value is determined by that serving size how much sugar how much fat how much protein is determined by that value that they think is a serving size so on the cereal boxes they say a serving size is two-thirds of a cup it's really not a lot of cereal if you typically eat two cups of cereal you will have to take those values and change them based on two cups serving so that's just something that you might want to keep in mind if the doctor or your health professional is telling you to be aware of how much sugar you ingest every day it needs to be determined by what the serving size is and then what the value is we're going to talk about it gives you three numbers for sugar on a nutrition label the total sugar is the value of the sugar that's in the product organically like if we talk about an oatmeal raisin bar or an oatmeal blueberry bar it would be the sugar that's already in the oats it would be the sugar that's already in the blueberries or already in the raisin that's an integral part of that product but then it has another value of added sugars so you have the value of sugars total that's in each product itself each ingredient in shell itself but then the value added sugars are more sugars that might be added during processing or preparing that product so the total value of sugars for these if we were eating two crackers is 16 percent or 16 grams so if you remember before we talked about the number 25 or six teaspoons for a young lady and 37 for a gentleman 16 is pretty high up there it's only nine less than 25 and that's just for that product right there so it is astounding to figure out the total grams of sugar if you they don't have grams listed or to figure out how many teaspoons when we talked about six teaspoons for a young lady nine teaspoons for a gentleman we're going to take four grams that's listed 16 eight plus eight is 16 grams divided by four is going to give you the number of teaspoons so two of those crackers is still four teaspoons of sugar that's amazing it's amazing to me that that would have that much sugar and it's so difficult to get away from sugar it's incredibly difficult so we're going to talk about some grocery store products and being a label detective honey nut oats so with honey I think that's great that's you know going to be a major ingredient if you look on the label whole grain oats whole grain barley that's what the oats are made out of third ingredient sugar third ingredient sugar just be aware label reading no added sugar so this item is sweetened by the apple that's in it but it is less harmful in your diet because they didn't add sugar as the second ingredient in the cereal to start your day just to be aware maybe you like crackers I'm sorry guys wheat thens second ingredient sugar trisks only three simple ingredients it really is important if you want to become in control of what you eat that you take the time you take your little magnifying glass with you and you look at those ingredients this the third ingredient in this product is salt so if you're on a salt restricted diet it may be something that you need to be aware of you may need to find a no salt no sugar cracker they're out there sometimes they're more expensive it is kind of discouraging to spend all of your time having to investigate what's on that label but if you don't how incredibly quickly you're going to go over those six teaspoons or nine teaspoons that are recommended for you and how quickly it's going to lead to added weight gain heart ailments diabetes all of those things that were red lighted because of too much sugar so disturbingly enough big source of sugar simple marinara sauce big source of sugar peanut butter you think peanut butter why can't peanut butter just be peanut butter peanuts are sweet they have their own sugar but you really have to look for on-natural vegan no sugar because on the less expensive sugar I'm afraid what we could afford second ingredient sugar after peanuts it's really distressing two cans of corn I have fresh whole corn whole kernel corn and I have sweet corn cream style guess what first ingredient corn cream style second ingredient sugar so this one has no sugar cream it yourself guys it's just a matter of being a smart shopper it is like I said it is distressing that you have to take the time to do this but if sugar is becoming an issue in your health and it will become an issue if you just continue to ingest sugar on a daily basis too much unknowingly until you're sick then really take the time and look for sugar and sweet things or look for sugar that's been reduced in products you can find them you do have to search for them this is an apple sauce if you're unable to eat the whole apple and get the fiber from an apple because of a tooth issue or you just can't finish a whole apple look for something that doesn't have sugar added to it they are out there you do need to kind of try and search them out but make a list keep a food diary it sounds kind of I don't know like I'm not a teenager I don't keep a diary anymore why would I do that too much trouble make it easy on yourself if you keep a list to go to the grocery store right beside wherever that list is however easy it is to put something on that list make it easy to write down what you ate that day and if you ate something that was low sugar and you enjoyed it make a note of it go back to it make it part of your diet include it more if you ate something that was high sugar and you had an effect from that make a note of it and then after keeping that food diary for a month or so or maybe even a less amount of time you'll see patterns in your diet that you might want to either make reinforce and make a standard way of eating or just do without completely but it will be kind of like a little eye-opening experience for you just to see exactly what your body is making use of every day or not making use of so we covered a lot of information I hope you learned a little bit about sugar and are able to maybe take a little bit more control of sugar in your diet and just go from here to a healthier time in the kitchen I'll be seeing you in the kitchen