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| Sugar-Free |
The debate between whether it is better to consume products with sugar or based on artificial sweeteners are still present in society.
According to the WHO, the consumption of sugars should not exceed 10% of the total caloric intake due to its harmful effects on health. However, for many it is difficult to eliminate it from the diet, since it somehow generates addiction and a feeling of pleasure. The idea is to reduce your consumption little by little and opt for other types of sweeteners that are much healthier and that fulfill the same function.
Seven tablespoons of sugar, that is the maximum amount that we should consume per day, according to nutritionists, to avoid health problems. If we consider that a single can of some of the most popular sodas or soft drinks already contains more sugar than that amount, we can see that it is not easy to stay within those limits.
That
is why many people are looking for a way to replace this sweetener. One of the
most popular options is artificial sweeteners, which provide a sweet taste with
little or no calories.
Designed
to trick our brain into believing that it is actually consuming sugar,
artificial sweeteners are chemicals that mimic its taste but prevent the health
problems it causes.
In
this article HEALTHY and FITNESS will compare these two products and see which
of the two ends up being better for our health.
Sugar
is a natural product that when consumed gives us a great contribution of energy
in the form of calories. In fact, it is the fuel for our cells and we find it
in countless foods for daily consumption. Not only in pastries or soft drinks,
fruit, for example, also has high amounts of sugar.
The
only nutritional contribution it makes is in the form of carbohydrates, which
are used by our body for energy. That is where the problem comes precisely,
because being a pure carbohydrate, can have negative consequences for
health.
According
to the World Health Organization (WHO), an adult of normal weight should
consume no more than 25 grams of sugar per day (which would be about 7
tablespoons) between all meals. It may seem like a lot, but the truth is that
considering that many foods carry it naturally, a large part of the population
far exceeds this limit.
When
we give it more sugar than it needs, our body does not know what to do with
this excess, since evolutionarily we are not yet adapted to the diets that we
take in the first world. To prevent the free circulation of sugar, what the body does is transform it into fat, which will begin to accumulate in the
tissues.
That's
when problems appear. This constant accumulation of fat derived from an
excessive consumption of sugar causes overweight, hypertension, diabetes, and
is also responsible for different cardiovascular diseases, since the blood
vessels and the heart itself are also surrounded by fat that makes it difficult
for them to function.
And
not only that, but the sugar itself also causes irritation in the gastric mucosa,
which can end up leading to the appearance of ulcers. In addition, it alters
our intestinal microbiota when it circulates through the digestive system.
As
we can see, excessive consumption of sugar is responsible for many health
problems, both physically and systemically.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, with nearly 18 million deaths
a year. Diabetes is the fourth. Liver and kidney disease are in the top 10.
Obesity is a very important risk factor for many different types of cancer, the
second leading cause of death in the world.
Taking
into account that the excessive consumption of sugar is directly or indirectly
responsible for many of these disorders, it is clear that health authorities
must warn of the serious consequences that sugar can have on health.
Technically,
it would be enough to reduce the amount of sugar in food, although that does
not interest either the food industry or our brain, which, no matter how much
we are aware of the risk we run, we continue to ask us to give it
"something sweet."
Sugar
gives us an immediate sensation of pleasure, so its effects are addictive to
our brain. We have gotten used to it since we find it in all kinds of daily
consumer products.
However,
since we are aware of the damage that it has on our body when it is consumed in
an excessive way, the food industry has been investing a lot of money in
bringing to the market products that dispense with artificial sweeteners.
Faced
with these conflicts of interest, the industry came up with a new idea to
remove the sugar from the products and add other substances that mimic their
taste but do not cause problems. Thus the concept of artificial sweeteners came up.
Sweeteners are alternatives to white sugar used for the same purpose to sweeten foods. There are two different sweetening alternatives to sugar; natural sweetener and artificial sweetener.
Artificial sweeteners are synthetic substances that mimic the taste of sugar but are healthier as they do not give us any caloric. Some such as saccharin, sucralose, acesulfame K, and aspartame are intensely sweet in small doses.
Some sweeteners can be made from natural
substances and are considered
"healthier" as those are of natural origin, which has less caloric
and has a higher nutritional contribution compared to refined sugars. For example, stevia is made from the leaves of a
plant is a natural sweetener.
Artificial
sweeteners are chemicals that sweeten just like sugar but differ from it in one
keyway: they have no calories.
Although
sugar was a great source of calories, artificial sweeteners do not give us any
caloric intake (or very little), so their consumption should not lead to the
complications of sugar, since they do not transform into fat and, therefore,
there is no accumulation of these in the tissues and organs.
There
are many different types of sweeteners. Some such as saccharin, sucralose,
acesulfame K and aspartame are intensely sweet in small doses; which makes
them interesting from an industrial point of view for use in "light"
soft drinks and sugar-free chewing gums. Others like sorbitol and xylitol are
more similar to "real" sugar, making them very good candidates for
use in baking.
Since
their use began, these artificial sweeteners have been in the spotlight, and
the lack of information has made it difficult to understand the reality behind
these substances.
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