Page 209 - How to Be a Conscious Eater - Making Food Choices That Are Good for You

brown sugar, corn syrup, evaporated cane juice, agave nectar, and
so on. One exception—what you might call a slightly less bad
option, which is relevant only if you’re replacing table sugar
as opposed to consuming it in addition—is honey. The main
reason is its antioxidant content. Though higher in calories by
tablespoon than table sugar, honey’s goopy consistency and
higher concentration of sweetness means you may be inclined
to use less of it.

What we know about added sugar: Consuming too much over the long
run can lead to weight gain. Eating sugar raises blood sugar
levels, which prompts the pancreas to release insulin; raised
insulin levels prompt the body to store more of our calories
from food as fat. There are also hormonal changes. Leptin, our
“I’m-full” hormone, gets essentially drowned out by insulin
levels that are out of whack, so we eat more and potentially
gain weight. Some studies suggest that sugar has an addictive
effect on us, much like a drug, in which our brain chemistry
changes; we crave sugar, need it in our minds as a reward, and
experience withdrawal-type symptoms without it. Finally, it’s
more than just weight gain and hormone changes at stake:
Over time, overconsuming added sugar has been linked to
numerous metabolic problems, which together have been
dubbed “metabolic syndrome.” These chronic conditions can
greatly increase the likelihood of heart disease and diabetes,
and they top the list of common causes of death. Oh, and cav-
ities. Remember those?

What we don’t know about added sugar: We don’t know whether con-
suming too much over the long run is also tied to accelerated
aging of our cells (which appears most visibly as wrinkles),
memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease, and the increased
incidence of some cancers, including rates of survival and

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