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Do you know how much sugar you’re drinking?
Our body doesn’t always know what’s best for us. It usually knows what it wants, but the same cannot be said for what it should have. The American Heart Association recommends a daily sugar intake of 36 grams for men and 26 grams for women, however many drinks contain more than that in just a single serving.
Beware of juices, believe it or not
Juices will often masquerade behind the guise of “healthiness,” or being packed full of fruits and vegetables, but these beverages rarely live up to the benefits that they claim.
“This drink equates to 17 teaspoons of sugar. If you can think of eating 17 teaspoons of sugar, that would be disgusting.” - Walter Willett
Bottled iced teas are typically over 40g of sugar
In the realm of iced tea, you’ll find brands like Snapple which has 40 grams of sugar per bottle, Pure Leaf which has 42 grams of sugar, or Gold Peak Georgia Peach Tea which has 45 grams of sugar per bottle (find more surprisingly unhealthy drinks here).
Over 40 grams of sugar for something that is meant to be “healthy” and “clean” ingredients. Come on folks, let’s get real here! Can you imagine pouring 10 teaspoons of sugar into one tall glass of homemade iced tea? Of course not! But that’s it equates to.
42 grams of sugar in one bottle vs 42 cans of Wize™ iced tea
We laid out how much sugar there is in one bottle of iced tea from a leading brand and compared it to Wize™ iced tea, which is just one gram of sugar. The difference is truly remarkable:
Harvard’s Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Walter Willett, is scared for the future, and this was in 2009:
“One bottle of sugary beverage per day causes a 60% increase in obesity in children”
See Harvard’s chart below, or click this link for the full PDF
How did we get to this point?
How is society so desensitized to high amounts of sugar? It has become not only an issue of epidemic proportions, but it’s also hurting our ability to taste subtle flavours as we bombard our taste buds with astronomical amounts of sugar that would never happen in nature.
“If your expectation of sweetness is so high, it’s difficult to appreciate the subtle sweetness of a fresh apple and it can push our whole diet in the wrong direction.”
This is what is so scary
While there has been a general awakening around sugar consumption, the existing alternative sweeteners aren’t necessarily proven to be the silver-bullet solution as researchers have found that they can still increase insulin resistance, essentially defeating their entire purpose. While the search for a healthy alternative sweetener still continues, maybe we should ask ourselves “do we really think we’ll find some magical answer? or should we simply cut it back and recalibrate our taste buds?” We believe that it’s time to be realistic, before it’s too late.
“There has been a 300 calorie daily increase over the last few years, with half of that being caused by sugary beverages.” - Walter Willett, Harvard
According to some estimates, about a quarter of children in the United States, and more than 40% of adults, are currently consuming low calorie sweeteners.
But, are artificial sweeteners as harmless as people seem to think? Research from a few years ago suggested that artificial sweeteners can still promote diabetes and obesity. And now, a new study adds to the evidence that sweeteners may have undeniable metabolic effects.
In fact, the latest study suggests that merely tasting something sweet could alter our metabolism and glucose control.
The solution? Cut back sugar and sweeteners to recalibrate our sensitivity
It’s probably not what you want to hear, but it’s really the only way forward to live a healthy life for generations to come. If you really think that some miracle guilt-free, side-effect-free sweetener is going to just land in our lap and solve the diabetes and obesity crisis, keep dreaming. The human body is trying to tell us that we are not meant to consume high amounts of sweetness in general and we just keep trying to cheat the system.
We need to start listening to our body and Wize up to our sugar intake, recalibrate it, and then we’ll see how sweet a real apple is, how satisfying a strawberry can be, and how delicious a real iced tea can taste with just a touch of sweetness. Now that's Wize.
