By Dean L. Jones

Added sugar is crucial to increasing the packaged food industry’s revenue stream.  That is mainly due to how much consumers are calling out for more flavor or taste in their foodstuff.  Food maker’s use of added sugar works to perk up the flavor, color, and/or texture of foods and drinks.  It is natural for human nature to crave flavor and adding sugar to anything will serve to satisfy most palettes enough to feel as though some type of flavor has been reached.

But added sugar puts on unhealthy weight, making it no wonder how according to the most recent data, rates of obesity is now exceeding 35% of the state’s population for Arkansas, West Virginia and Mississippi.  There are 22 states that have obesity rates above 30%, 45 states are above 25%, and all 50 states are above 20%.  This huge weight problem can be attributed to how our food delivery system over reaches with putting artificial flavor in their respective products.

Our human structure has no dietary requirement for carbohydrates from processed sugar.  Furthermore, ingesting high amounts of processed sugar in all probability will reduce the ability to regulate caloric intake, leading to eating more sugar, overeating, and ultimately being included in those previously mentioned obesity rates.

No other mammal naturally craves processed sugar, by this means it is totally an unnecessary source of calories, as it provides no feeling of fullness, not to mention how it is more commonly acknowledged to be a major factor contributing to Type 2 diabetes.  It goes even further, where for a long time science blamed saturated fat for heart disease are now sharing well documented studies that processed sugar, not fat, is probably the leading cause of heart disease by means of the harmful effects of fructose on our metabolism.

An old common joke described an unfamiliar food flavor by saying it tastes like chicken, meaning it has a generic taste.  On the other hand, this phrase has somewhat perished since chicken does not taste like chicken.  Instead, it commonly is served pre-flavored as chicken nuggets, chicken sausage, chicken patties, chicken burgers, chicken strips, chicken cutlets, Buffalo wings, and the rest.

Accordingly, added sugar goes into every meat sauce known to mankind resulting in the pre-flavored mix dilemma that once eaten will become addictive and inevitably lead to over consumption.  This presents a double jeopardy of not just the over consumption, but also the ingestion of empty calories.

The weakening food flavor is so prevalent that there is a growing trend to buy and use flavored sugars.  If so, consider re-establishing your true taste buds and seek flavor from fresh fruits, legumes and vegetables.  Some plants taste better when organically grown, but what matters is that enhanced flavor is more readily available when you live SugarAlert!

www.SugarAlert.com
Mr. Jones is a marketing strategist with the Southland Partnership Corporation (a public benefit organization), sharing his view on mismanagement practices of packaged foods & beverages