Good Sugar, Bad Sugar

Is there really such a thing as "good" or "bad" sugar? Well. in a nutshell, all forms of carbohydrates eventually break down into "sugar" for our bodies to use as a fuel source. However if you think of grades of gasoline it's the same thing, some are just better than others and affect your bodies differently.

Some sugars occur naturally in food, for example the lactose in milk and fructose in fruit. Or, if you look at a yogurt container you might get really confused because depending on the the kind you pick some have only the lactose and some have added teaspoons of sugar or other suspicious ingredients. So how to do you know then? You not only read the actual label but the ingredients listed on the label to check for added sugars under the names of brown sugar, raw, or invert sugar, syrup, including corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup,  malt syrup, honey, molasses, agave nectar, evaporated cane juice, and fruit juice concentrate. Anything with an "ose" at the end of the word is a tip off too.

But getting back to the more natural forms of sugar think about a strawberry. It may have fructose but it also contains numerous other healthy nutrients and fiber. The sugars in a plain strawberry are okay in moderation, since they contain other good phytonutrients.

But if something has a label nutrition label it's important to look at the entire label including the ingredient list.