Sugar & Sweeteners 101! Artificial, Natural, Sugar Alcohols & RANT- Mind Over Munch

Hello my sweet, sweet munchies. Welcome to my channel whether you are new or if you are a long time muncher. I'm not gonna lie it has taken me quite a while to get this episode together because it was actually really challenging to figure out how to present this information. I mean hours and hours and hours and days and I am so glad it's over and more importantly I am happy that I can share it with you now. There is so much information, so many health claims, this sweetener is good, this one is bad and then you turn the page and someone is claiming the opposite. How do we decide? In this episode I'm going to give you the facts and then you can decide how to apply that to your lifestyle. There was a lot of information to sift through and I obviously can't cover it all so I'm going to share the very basic breakdown to make it worth your precious time. I do apologize because I know it's a bit long but I didn't want to leave out the essentials even though I know I couldn't cover everything. If you have additional information that you think is important to share please do so tactfully in the comments below. This isn't me saying that I'm right and you're wrong. It is just offering the facts. This is me shaking off the trolls before they come. First of all sugar is a carbohydrate. When you look at a label it is indented under the carbohydrates because it is a part of that macronutrient category. Sugar is a simple carb which literally just means it is easier to break down but that is because it is higher in sugar and lower in fiber which is generally not what we want the bulk of our diets to be made of with fruit being the exception even though fruit is usually high in fiber. Before we talk about the sweeteners we do have to spend a few quick seconds talking about the science behind sucrose aka table sugar. Sucrose is made up of glucose and fructose. Glucose is the body's preferred energy source aka blood sugar. Most carbs we eat are processed into glucose either immediately to be used as energy or stored for later use as glycogen. Fructose is found naturally in fruits and veggies but it has a different metabolic pathway and is not the preferred energy source for muscles or the brain. It is only metabolized in the liver. Fructose is also lipogenic which means it can be turned into fat. Sucrose is made up of these two, glucose and fructose. When we consume sucrose our body separates it into separate units of glucose and fructose. The glucose is going to be used first as the main energy source. If more energy is needed it will be pulled from the fructose but if not it can be stored as fat. And that is where sugar can become scary. Sugar itself is not bad and neither is fructose or glucose but consuming too much just means that we have more than we need and our body can't really do anything else with it. So before you ask me in the comments, will fruit make you fat? I will say probably not. Fruit is great fuel and the fructose in fruit is not the same as the synthetic fructose molecule. Fruit contains fiber and enzymes and vitamins, minerals, antioxidants whereas fructose sweeteners don't have any nutritional value. I don't want to spend a bunch of time in this episode talking about that. When you eat sugar your blood sugar levels, the amount of glucose in your blood stream, rise. Your pancreas then secretes insulin which is a hormone that tells your liver to start taking the glucose out of the blood and converting it to glycogen for storage. This then makes your liver stop transferring fat out of your adipose tissues or fat cells and burning it for energy. Instead your liver starts using its stored glycogen reserves to fuel your cellular metabolism. If you are like oh my gosh what is she talking about? Don't worry it's fine. Pretty much when we eat sugar or when we eat too much sugar our body stops burning fat as a fuel source so we are pretty much training our body's metabolism to store fat. Moving on finally. At some point in the history of time we only had one sweetener to choose from and that was regular sugar. Now we have too many to count so let's break them down into categories. There are way more that could fit into these categories but for the sake of time I am just going to include the most common ones today to keep this digestible. First I actually want to quickly talk about an overlooked but important category, modified sugars. Modified sugars are typically produced by converting starch using enzymes or sugars that have been modified like caramel syrup. So what I'm mostly talking about with this category is high fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup isn't actually that sweet on its own but once the glucose is converted to fructose and it's transformed to high fructose corn syrup it is very very sweet, much sweeter than sugar. Now in small amounts high fructose corn syrup actually wouldn't be much worse for you than regular sugar but it is in everything. So many processed foods contain high fructose corn syrup. Most people especially Americans are consuming way too much of it. It is pretty widely accepted that it is best to just avoid it. Table sugar or sucrose is made up of about 50% glucose, 50% fructose. High fructose corn syrup on the other hand is around 55% fructose and 42% glucose. The rest is water. Remember unlike glucose which is metabolized in many different ways by the body, fructose is only metabolized by the liver and when the liver receives more fructose than it can handle the excess sugars are turned into fats. Now we can move on to the good stuff. Let's talk about natural caloric sweeteners because this is a touchy one. Who am I kidding they're all touchy. So these are natural sweeteners that do contain calories and sugar. They are the oldest known sweeteners. There are many of them but let's take a look at the stats for some of the most common ones like honey, maple syrup, coconut palm sugar and agave and compare it to regular sugar. As you can see all of these contain calories, carbs and sugar and pretty close to the same amount. So what does it mean? All of these contain just as many calories and sugar as regular table sugar. So are they healthier choices? Because calories aren't everything right? Yes this is true but calories do count. Macros do matter whether you track them or not they exist. This is a touchy topic. A lot of people argue that these are healthier choices because they are natural and they are providing micronutrients and antioxidants. Yes many of these options do contain some micronutrient and antioxidant benefits but they are still sugar and that sugar is still going to affect our bodies the same way if we consume too much of it. How much is too much? The AHA recommends only 6 teaspoons or 24 grams of added sugar per day for women and 9 teaspoons or 36 grams of added sugar per day for men. One can of soda has 39 grams of sugar just to put that in perspective. Keep in mind these recommendations are for added sugar not natural sugar from fruit and yes natural sweeteners are added even if they are from natural sources because they are not whole foods. Back to the whole antioxidant argument let me break it down for a quick second. Depending on the brand a quarter cup of maple syrup contains around 100% of the manganese you need in a day. Amazing! Now what is also high in manganese? Let's see mussels, hazelnuts, and pumpkin seeds. The difference these three choices also provide other additional benefits of nutrition without the negative cost of the sugar. Also a quarter cup of maple syrup is a lot. 210 mostly empty calories and around 50 grams of sugar all to get in your manganese? I'll take the pumpkin seeds. If you are using one tablespoon of maple syrup in a smoothie you aren't getting 100% of your manganese for the day. You're getting around 25% because that is only a quarter of the serving. Do you see the difference? Using sweeteners as an excuse for micronutrients is the same as eating chocolate to get in your potassium. Just like we talked about in my dark chocolate episode it doesn't work that way. By all means our bodies are better equipped to eat many of these. They are from a natural source with some micronutrient and antioxidant benefits. Some of them won't cause as large of a spike in insulin levels as more refined sugars or sweeteners but if we consume too much the same thing is going to happen. It's going to be stored as fat. Key words if we consume too much. These items still need to be consumed in moderation just like regular table sugar. Also as is said on the American Diabetes Association website it provides just as many calories and carbs as regular sugar so it shouldn't be treated any differently than regular sugar. Also while we are on natural sweeteners it is worth briefly touching on agave because I know a lot of people are fooled into thinking it is a healthier choice and for a long time I was too but it actually has more fructose in it than high fructose corn syrup. So remember table sugar is 50% fructose 50% glucose. High fructose corn syrup is around 55% fructose and agave is anywhere from 70 to 95% fructose depending on who produces it. Remember what happens when you eat excess fructose? This is why you won't find me recommending agave as a sweetener in my videos. Moving on to artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are very controversial. Now at first when I was researching this and making my bullet points for what to talk about this section was becoming an essay because there is just so much to say about artificial sweetener controversy and I decided I don't want this video to be about that. I want to give you the basics and enough information so you are able to make a decision for yourselves but I do of course encourage you to go and do your own research if you want to learn more. I don't suggest putting anything in your body that you don't know or understand what it is but I could literally spend an hour just breaking down the deal with these. So I am not going to do that. Let's summarize. There are tons of artificial sweeteners and some appear to be safer than others. The most common ones are aspartame which is like NutraSweet or Equal, saccharin which is like the brand Sweet N Low and sucralose which is like the brand Splenda. These are either no calorie or are very low in calories and they are so sweet. They can be anywhere from 200 to 1000 times sweeter than sugar so you need much less and because of that there ends up being little to no calories for the amount that you actually need to use. Now these are usually the sweeteners that are used in sugar free or diet products, drinks, etc. For most of these sweeteners the problem is that they are chemically derived. They are made of chemicals. When you read about the chemicals that are in them most people go I have no idea what that is which may not be a great sign or the chemicals are ones they do know that aren't generally talked about for consuming like chlorine or ammonia. These are very cheap to make which could be the reason that the government continues to use them. There are many conspiracy theory arguments with artificial sweeteners. I'm not saying I partake. Aspartame has been linked to brain cancer and leukemias. Saccharin has been linked to bladder cancer. It should be noted that these links were based on rat studies not humans which is why they are still legal and FDA approved. It should also be noted that these cancers were caused when the sweeteners were consumed in high quantities. So how high is the question? To exceed a safe amount of aspartame studies have shown that a 150 pound adult would have to drink more than 20 12 ounce cans of soda. So it's really up to you to decide. This is the problem. There just hasn't been enough research and more importantly there hasn't been enough time to know. So think about it. These sweeteners started to come about in the 1970s, 1980s and maybe even later. There has not even been an entire normal lifespan of a person since that time. It's only 35 years ago. So we can't say how it's going to affect people long term and what the consequences may be. I personally think it was probably approved too early with too little testing but what can you do? Are they supposed to test the products for 1 to 200 years before deciding it's okay to consume? And that's also a huge problem with nutrition in general as we haven't had enough time with the technology that we have today to really figure out what is right or wrong or what is or isn't and that's why it is so important that you listen to your body and your heart and your mind and decide what lifestyle is right for you because all of these people claiming to know only know as much as we can know right now but that isn't everything. But I digress. Aside from the cancer and the adverse health effects on rats which could potentially mean humans, we don't really know, the sweetness of these products and the fact that they are chemicals and not actual carbs also needs to be considered. So you may have seen an article or a headline somewhere talking about how diet products are going to make you fat. The main reason that those claims come up is A, some studies have shown that these products can stimulate your appetite so you actually want to eat more which can of course lead to weight gain and B, increases cravings. So when we consume sweeteners that do not contain calories or carbs, we temporarily feel satisfied because of that sweetness but our brains become sort of confused because they taste the sweet product but they aren't getting any of the simple carbs or sugar to satisfy. So because of that a lot of people end up with cravings, a lot of times not even realizing it and end up eating more sugary or carb heavy foods than they would have otherwise and that goes for all no calorie sweeteners artificial or not. Speaking of not, next we shall touch on natural zero calorie sweeteners. So these sweeteners are not carbohydrates and they contain no calories or very little if any at all. They are also way sweeter than sugar around 300 times or so sweeter. The most common ones today are stevia or stevia and monk fruit both of which originally come from a plant. Now monk fruit is from China and it's been used for 800 years or so as a sweetener and it was also used for medicinal purposes and it does contain some antioxidants as well. Stevia is a plant from South America. It can grow in any tropical climate and the leaves are actually sweeter than sugar. So the stevia that you are buying is usually an extract from the plant. You can also buy stevia as a granulated powder or a liquid and the different types will vary in sweetness and it can have an aftertaste. Now because of that aftertaste I found that I don't like to use too much of it. If I do bake with it I prefer to cut down the sweetenery taste by using half stevia and half coconut sugar or some other actual sugar option. Otherwise the aftertaste tends to bother me a little bit too much but to each his own. Stevia can be extracted with only water naturally but there have been techniques that use ethanol or alcohol to extract it and while none of that remains in the extract some people have been wary of it. So make sure you are buying one that is more pure and whole and less processed. Health wise there are supposedly no side effects to these sweeteners but again the less processed you can go the better. A few years ago there were concerns that animal studies linked it to adverse effects on fertility and reproductive development but they found that that was for whole leaf stevia not the extract. You don't buy the whole leaf at the store you buy the extract in powder or liquid form. A lot of people think there haven't been enough tests done and there honestly haven't been that many so again it's very new and we don't know the long term effects but the research that has been done so far points to it being safe. Now as was the case with artificial sweeteners a lot of people don't recommend these either because they are no calorie and so your brain is left wondering where is the sugar? Where are those simple carbs? So does that mean you shouldn't eat them? Not necessarily. It's more about how you handle cravings individually but again those indulgences can come in different forms. It doesn't mean you're going to end up eating stevia and then craving a brownie. It could be any sort of carb or processed food craving because what your brain is missing is that simple carb that it can use really quickly. The final type of sweetener I want to touch on just briefly is sugar alcohols. Now some of you may have heard or seen in products you've eaten like xylitol, erythritol, maltitol. These are more similar to sugars in that they are carbohydrates and they occur naturally in small amounts in plants. They are fewer calories per gram than sugar. Wait what? So carbs are four calories per gram. Why are sugar alcohols not the same? The body does not actually fully metabolize them so they have fewer available calories per gram. So the pros, they don't have the aftertaste. I've baked with erythritol before. It tastes quite good and it behaves like sugar. They are also lower in calories and carbs and they don't cause tooth decay like sugar. Cons, they can cause cramps or bloating if eaten in excess. If eaten in excess. If eaten in excess. I'll say it again, in excess. Overall when it comes to sweeteners my advice is to decide what resonates with you and what is most important to you. As I say all the time on this channel, health to me is not just ingredients or just macros or calories. It is truly a balance and appreciation and acknowledgement of both. I know a lot of people disagree with me and that's fine but that's what I'm sharing here because it makes sense. Yes the more quality the ingredients are the better of course but in America especially we are consuming way too much sugar whether it's natural or not and we consume a lot of processed foods. And sure if you have a 100% whole foods diet you probably don't need to worry about or consider calories but this is America and most of us don't have a 100% whole foods diet. The answer to this problem that we are dealing with as a culture is not necessarily going to be eliminate all sugar or all sweet items or all processed foods and if anyone actually thinks that they aren't really helping to solve the problem because that's too much blue sky thinking. We are used to eating sugar so that's where balance comes in. If you find that balance within your own lifestyle by using some no calorie sweetener options to help lower your sugar intake there is nothing wrong with that. But we also don't want to be only consuming no calorie sweeteners especially in excess. The key word for all of these is the word I hate most of all, moderation. Watch my rant if you don't know why I hate that word. But it is true we shouldn't turn to any of these options excessively. We have to find balance no matter which option we choose and remember you don't have to have just one you can do what works for you. So if you drink 10 cups of coffee a day and use a packet of sugar in each one it could be worth it to swap to a no calorie option at least for some of them. If you only have one cup a day then that one teaspoon of sugar is probably fine. And going along with that I know this video is really long and you're ready to be done but if you've made it this far you are the reason I make these videos and you're probably not the person who needs to hear this but I'm going to say it anyway. I have seen people on YouTube or in real life that think they are helping people by attacking someone who uses these sweeteners or another product and saying you're going to get cancer or this makes you fat and let me tell you it does not help. There are tactful ways to encourage someone to do their own research because at the end of the day it is their decision and if there are consequences to that decision then they have to live with them. Also the consequences and side effects aren't made well known. Obviously these sweeteners are still allowed to be on the shelves and in the products sold everywhere around us so why would people assume that they are bad for us. A lot of people think they are doing a good thing by consuming these and while we can help let them know that there may be a better choice making people feel stupid for making a choice that is encouraged by the media is not ok. Encourage people to be better and that means us also being better too without being mean. So thank you so much for watching and listening. I hope that you learned something and I would love to hear your feedback in the comments below. If you have tips about what works for you that would be amazing to share. Just remember to be kind because I am really proud of the positivity in this community and I am not going to let that get tainted by trolls. I hope you have a fantastic day and week and remember especially when it comes to sweets it's all a matter of Mind Over Munch.