4 simple tricks for trimming sugar from your diet

Sugar comes in many forms and can be hidden on many food labels.  Here is some expert health advice on avoiding the traps of eating too much sugar.

What if we told you that there's one ingredient in food today that, more than anything else nutritionally related, is making us fat? No, it's not fat. And it's not even sugar — at least, not all forms of sugar. It's high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which didn't even exist 40 years ago. Today, however, this sweetener is found in nearly every processed food you buy — from fast-food hamburger buns to ketchup, juice, cereal and even mayonnaise. It's much more dangerous than plain sugar, because your body doesn't metabolize it in the same way, leading to higher levels of blood fats. Even more frightening: it doesn't affect the hormones that suppress hunger. So even if you're getting an extra 500 calories a day from HFCS, your body still thinks it needs more. The easiest way to avoid HFCS is to eschew processed foods and buy organic (and read the ingredients list carefully).

Sugar can be hidden in products you wouldn't even think to look for it. Manufacturers are deathly afraid that you'll quit using their products if they aren't dripping with sugary taste so they add it to improve the taste of things like cough medicine, chewing gum, tomato sauce, baked beans and lunch meats. You'll even find sugar in some prescription medications.

Identifying sugary foods can be tricky because manufacturers often substitute code words on their labels. So look for these terms:

• Corn syrup
• Dextrin
• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Fruit juice concentrate
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Galactose
• Glucose
• Honey
• Hydrogenated starch
• Invert sugarmaltose
• Lactose
• Mannitol
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Polyols
• Raw sugar
• Sorghum
• Sucrose
• Sorbitol
• Turbinado sugar
• Xylitol

If you have a sweet tooth, you can assuage that need for sweets with fruit just as well as with candy, cakes and cookies. Researchers from Ohio State found sweet-snack lovers eat more fruits than salty-snack lovers, and fruit lovers eat more sweet snacks than vegetable lovers. The moral of the research? Reach for a juicy peach next time you're craving a Mars bar and see if it doesn't fill that craving just as well.

Sugar has become a large part of the North American diet. It may even be in food without us knowing it. The best solution is to be vigilant and keep an eye out for sugar and all its many aliases on food labels.