There you are, in front of the cooler, poised to make the decision. Should I choose, the soda, maybe a sweet tea, or perhaps a Naked Juice? Looking at the labels, Naked Juice has "No Sugar Added" plastered across the front of it so you make your choice, Naked Juice it is! Though Naked Juice is naked of many things, sugar is NOT one of them.
I frequently hear "Well it's got natural sugar, so...". Unfortunately this mentality gets many people in trouble; sugar is sugar and it does not matter where it came from. Our intestines do not have eyes nor ears and cannot tell whether it is corn syrup, table sugar, fruit sugar, white sugar, natural sugar, nor brown sugar.
The biggest problem is the sheer volume of sugar in our food and drinks. If we look at the number of grams in the food/drink we are eating and divide that number by 4; that is the number of teaspoons of sugar we're eating. For example a 12 ounce glass of orange juice has 32 grams of sugar meaning there are 8 teaspoons of sugar in it. This level of sugar consumption, regardless of where it came from, promotes heart disease, diabetes, obesity, inflammation, arthritis and the list goes on. Granted, fresh fruit has a lot of sugar and carries with it other health benefits however only 10% of the US eats enough fruit on meaning fresh fruit is not the source of this sugar in the overwhelming majority of cases. If you'd like to learn how you can cut down on the amount of sugar or you care to learn how it may be impacting your health, contact the office!