Sugar is one of the most popular drugs on the market. Often, I am asked if I could choose one thing we should eliminate from a diet and my answer is without question: “added sugar.” Particular sugars to banish include granulated sugars, high fructose additives, and about 5 dozen other name variations.

To be clear, I am not talking about fruit sugar here but refined beverages, baked goods, candy, and other highly modified and manipulated super sugars. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that added sugars comprise less than 10% of total calories. Personally, I aim for less than 25% sugar in my diet.   

The Nature of Sugar

Essentially there are six common sugars in nutrition, which are fundamentally carbohydrates. Three of them come from monosaccharides and the other three come from disaccharides. There are other sugars such as xylose, ribose, and so on, but we are going to keep this basic. You’ve likely heard many common sugar types as they all end with “ose” which essentially means sugar.

While sugar types may sound similar they each exhibit very distinct characteristics. Glucose is the most popular and well-known name for sugar followed by fructose, galactose, lactose, maltose, and sucrose and those are the carb sources we will explore today. Glucose is a single sugar used in both plant and animal tissues for energy. Fructose is commonly referred to as fruit sugar. Galactose is milk sugar. Lactose is also a milk sugar. maltose is known as malt sugar.

And finally, sucrose, also known as table or cane sugar. And here it’s important to point out that while we derive energy from sugar in fruits and many vegetables, this does not mean eating them is the same as consuming concentrated sweets found in soda, candy, and other forms of highly refined sugars. There are other forces at work here including starch, fiber, and hormonal response to food type. However, starches and fibers are typically only found in any quantity and quality in complex carbohydrates.

What are some sources of Sugar or simple carbohydrates?

Popular sugar sources include the raw form of or products containing: Sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup, honey, glucose, fructose, and sucrose, and that nasty fruit juice concentrate. Mono sugars can be found in refined quantities in mainstream food sources such as soft drinks, cereals, baked goods, enriched white bread and pasta, candies, and hundreds of other products. Even your spaghetti sauce is loaded with sugar.

What are some healthy sources of Sugar or complex carbohydrates?

What sugars should i cut or greatly reduce?

While it may be exceedingly difficult to cut all added sugars from owns diet in the West, there are some foods you can eliminate or reduce right away:

Agave, alcoholic beverages, baked goods, barbeque sauce, boxed instant meals, breakfast cereals, candy, canned beans, canned fruit, canned iced teas, canned pastas, canned soups, cereal, chips, crackers, dried fruit, granola, honey, instant oatmeal, jams and preserves, juice, juice concentrate, milk, most chocolate, pasta sauce, premade frozen meals, pretzels, protein bars, salad dressing, smoothies, soda, sports drinks, syrup, white bread, white rice, yogurt.

This is not an exhaustive list but covers most common food source and types found in a typical diet in the United States. If you need more convincing, check out the top 5 reasons below to cut added sugar immediately…

1. Added Sugars Do Not Contain Essential Nutrients: 

Added sugars like sucrose and high fructose corn syrup contain a significant number of calories and lack any essential nutrients. Sugar foods typically do not contain any proteins, essential fats, vitamins or minerals. Your teeth also suffer from the eroding effect of sugar and your healthy bacterial ratios are decimated while many cancers feed on sugar.

2. Added Sugar is High in Fructose and can upset your liver:

Before sugar enters the bloodstream from the digestive system, it is broken down into two simple sugars… glucose and fructose… Glucose is found in every living cell on the planet and humans can manufacture glucose for energy production. On the other hand, our bodies do not produce fructose in any significant amount and there is no physiological need for it and fructose can only be metabolized by the liver in any significant amounts. This is not a problem if the food source is fruit or you just finished an exercise session.

This is because fructose will be turned into glycogen and stored in the liver. But beware, if the liver is full of glycogen because of excess sugar consumption or low activity levels, eating a lot of fructose overloads the liver, forcing it to turn the fructose into fat for energy reallocation in the body. 

Another nasty byproduct of excessive sugar consumption is the new phenomenon called Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), a growing problem in Western countries that is strongly associated with metabolic diseases. I want to be clear, this does not apply to reasonable fruit intake if you have a healthy low-sugar balanced diet. It is difficult for most people to overeat fructose by eating fruit.

3. Sugar May Cause Insulin Resistance:

Sugar is directly linked to Metabolic Dyslipidemia and Diabetes. As most people know, Insulin is a critical hormone in the body. It is the conduit that allows glucose (blood sugar) to enter cells from the bloodstream and tells the cells to start burning glucose instead of fat. Constantly elevated blood sugars are harmful and one of the reasons for complications of diabetes, like blindness and peripheral neuropathy. Constantly bombarding our cells with glucose creates insulin resistance, which is believed to be a leading driver of many diseases including metabolic syndrome, obesity, cardiovascular disease and especially type II diabetes.

4. Sugar effects Hormones and the brain which can cause fat retention: 

Calories are only part of the equation when it comes to nutrition management. I have already done a video on the law of conservation of mass and the glycemic load of food sources, so I won’t go into too much here. Basically, Different foods can have specific effects on our brains and the hormones. But sugar causes insulin spikes and the elevation of blood glucose levels which pauses lipolysis in the body. Basically, that means you are not burning fat until the glucose and insulin levels dissipate.

5. Sugar Causes Massive Dopamine Release in The Brain and is Highly Addictive:

Like insidious drugs, sugar causes a release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain. High-sugar foods cause massive a dopamine release which far exceeds that of any food sources we are exposed to in nature, including fruit. This addiction can be seen in the obesity epidemic, negative habit patterns, behavior, and unconscious gravitation towards feel-good products. In a society obsessed with instant gratification, sugar is the perfect drug.