In popular myth and religion, evil is often disguised as good—the wolf in sheep’s clothing, for example. Or as something tempting—a Jezebel or Delilah, or dare I say it, a piece of candy. For years, sweets have been innocently associated with children, celebration and reward. A cute little child sucking on a lollipop; a poor boy finding a gold entry ticket to the Wonka factory in a bar of chocolate; a slice of birthday cake or a donut after church on Sunday. How bad can that be? At worst, I was told as a kid, if I ate too much my teeth would rot. Big deal, right? And yet, study after study is now popping up with the reality that sugar is a little more evil than simple tooth decay. The truth is, it’s responsible for heart disease and a slew of other preventable, long-term illnesses. As sweet as it is, sugar is killing us.

An Inconsistent Message
Back in the ‘80s we blamed a high-fat diet for all our heart attacks and cardiovascular problems. It clogged our arteries. It raised our cholesterol. And while trans fats were and still are working their black magic, sugar was just something you needed to keep in moderation. Remember?

In fact, one of the reasons the American Heart Association has not been as successful as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure (and all those pretty pink bows for breast cancer) is because the message associated with heart disease for woman has, quite frankly, been inconsistent. First, we were told that heart disease was a “man’s disease,” then we were told heart disease was caused by too much fat in the diet. Now we’re told it’s sugar. But what’s now convincing scientists that sugar has been the culprit all along? When we look back at study after study of poor health markers and indicators, sugar is the one constant; at least the high-fructose corn syrup variety, that is (and a whole slew of other named sugars as well).

Women Are at Higher Risk
Whatever the ultimate cause of heart disease (and it’s most likely a combination of poor diet, no exercise and stress), new research about sugar and heart disease is alarming; there is indeed a connection. Worse yet, women seem to be the more obvious victims. According to an article in Salon, Riddhi Shah writes, Women… are genetically predisposed to prefer sweeter tastes, with greater sensitivity to bitterness. As a result, cocktails and alcoholic drinks aimed at women tend to be sweet—as an attempt to mask the burn—and colorful (because, you know, pink will make anything more palatable).

The author also cited that women are prone to eating sweets because of hormones, physiology and culture.

Hidden Sugar
You could claim that you never eat donuts or cookies, so you’re off the hook. But so much of today’s processed, grocery-shelf foods have hidden sugars. You no longer need to eat a piece of candy to get your daily dose. I examined several brand-name products for sugar content: pasta (2 grams), whole-wheat crackers (4 grams) and cinnamon applesauce (27 grams). Isn’t applesauce sweet enough without adding more sugar?

Drinks are the biggest perpetrator. Once again, after examining several brand-name products, I was surprised to see that the water with the vitamins added had the same amount of sugar as a can of soda: 33 grams! Milkshakes are even worse. A St. Patty’s Day, green-colored milkshake had 74 grams! A 20-ounce bottle of an orange-flavored drink had 85 grams! I might be better off eating cookies; three of them had less sugar at 14 grams.

It is important to read the labels before consuming a product. You may be surprised at how many grams of sugar you are eating each day.

Fat vs. Sugar
What’s most interesting in regard to sugar and heart disease is that we’ve ignored it as a contributing factor all along. Not all fats (at least not healthy fats like omega-3s and 9s) “cause” heart disease. Another culprit was, and still is… sugar. This was explained to me in the viral “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” video, an 89-minute lecture by Robert H. Lustig, MD, and UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology. He reminds us that the USDA made huge recommendations to cut fat out of our diet, and because of such a successful campaign, millions of us did so and went on a classic low-fat diet. Heck, everything my mother had in the house back in the late ‘80s was fat-free or low-fat. And yet the obesity epidemic got worse, diabetes became more prevalent and so did heart disease. And what was the one constant throughout those years? Sugar.

Lustig went on to further cite that the USDA based “30 years of nutrition education and information” on one man’s poorly developed study that solely blamed fat as causing heart disease. The study, known as “The Seven Countries,” was conducted without a computer and, despite recognizing that there was a correlation between fat and sucrose, it only held fat accountable,—not sugar. In other words, if you consider that a donut is a bad thing to eat, and a donut has both fat and sugar, this study only blamed the fat portion of the donut as having an effect on cardiovascular disease, not sugar.

Now, however, study after study is surfacing that sugar is bad to the bone and must be taken in moderation. The American Heart Association now recommends eating only 25-30 grams of sugar daily. But that’s virtually impossible with today’s food choices. One eight-ounce glass of juice has 30-80 grams of sugar. Weight-loss drinks have 35 grams of sugar. Even what seems like a healthy yogurt drink can have 25-60 grams of sugar added.

Nearly all of our food choices have added sugar. Without knowing it, you could be on a supposed “health kick” but taking in 200+ grams of sugar daily!

The Worst News
By far the worst to come out of all these studies is the fact that scientists are learning that sugar is toxic. The body does not recognize it, it over-taxes the liver, has zero nutritional value and, according to Lustig, it even changes your body’s ability to process other foods while it weakens your immune system. Essentially sugar is poison.

The Solution

With seemingly poor food choices available to us, what’s the solution? Most experts agree it’s all about natural, raw foods and staying away from junk. Here are a few tips.

• Simplify and get back to basics. Eat more fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds and other foods that can be found in their natural state. Instead of applesauce from a jar with added sugar, cut up a real apple. Heck, make your own applesauce.
• Stay away from prepackaged foods. To extend shelf-life or make things taste more appealing, manufacturers add sugar to food items that don’t need it: pastas, sauces, cereals, milk etc. may all have added sugar.
• Read labels. If you are going to buy packaged foods, be sure to look for grams of sugar. The lower the better!
• Cook at home. The more you cook at home (from scratch), the more control you have over how much sugar and fat gets into your recipes. A store-bought or boxed-cake mix will typically have far more sugar than one you bake at home from scratch.
• Eat your sugar with fiber. Candy has no fiber. A donut has no fiber. A strawberry, peach, plum, apple and other fruits have fiber. The more your body can recognize a food, the less you tax your liver.

Tracy Shields is co-owner and Marketing Director of N3 Oceanic, Inc., maker of Res-Q products and Nature’s Shield, a subsidiary of N3. She is a writer, triathlete, nutrition junkie and devoted mother of two boys. She is also a proud member and President-Elect of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), South Jersey Chapter.