Every week my husband and I pick a night to go out to dinner.  During this time we leave phones behind, forget about work, and enjoy ourselves.  This past week in lieu of going out, we decided to pick up ingredients at the store and make dinner at home under the watchful eye of our labrador retriever.

I’m a sucker for a good pizza and a pint of beer, so that’s what I decided our menu would be.  In the name of easy preparation, I set out across the grocery store to find pizza sauce.  Looking over the sauce food labels and ingredients, one statistic jumped out at me: Sugar content.

Sugar falls into one of two categories.  It’s either inherently present in the food, or it’s added.  The previous is less troubling than the latter, however both present a problem.

The biggest challenge I face as a doctor is patient awareness and education.  What I mean by that is most people want very black and white answers.  Is “item x” good or bad for me?  Should I eat it or not?

It is very easy to generalize nutrition through that scope, but the more important and tougher question to answer is: How does my body react with “item x” and why?

Now let’s go back to our sugar example.  It is pretty obvious that excessive sugar intake is bad for you, but let’s look at it through our “How?” and “Why?” lens.

The sugar from a soda and the sugar from a piece of fruit are not metabolically treated by your body the same way.  Added sugar gets absorbed very quickly and processed by your liver, causing your insulin to spike, and in turn those calories get stored as fat.  To make matters worse, these sugar spikes stimulate your brain in a manner that creates additional sugar cravings.

The natural sugar found in a piece of fruit or vegetable gets treated much differently. These sugars are accompanied by fiber and get processed by your liver at a much slower pace.  The result is a gradual rise in blood sugar, no insulin spike, and calories that get burned for energy instead of being stored as fat.

Why did the label on the back of this can bother me so much?

Sugar is the only item on an FDA label without a daily allowable percentage and is instead only measured in grams. Don’t believe me? I dare you to find a label with a percentage of sugar listed.

The food industry has done a lot to hide the amount and type of sugar in products from consumers in the name of taste, resulting in a very blurry line of what is added vs. natural.  The result is most people are getting too much of the wrong type of sugar because they are not aware it’s there in the first place.

Start checking labels, but even better start cooking with real whole food. The more you cook the better off you will be, and the more control you will have over what gets added to your food.  If you use store bought that’s ok, but take note of what is in that item. Awareness of what you are putting in your body will make you healthier than any diet ever could.