“New FDA guidelines urge Americans to drastically cut back on sugar”
is how the New York Times headline read last month.
The dietary guidelines, issued by the Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments, are updated every five years since 1980. Typically, they’ve encouraged Americans to consume more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean meat, and low-fat foods, while restricting intake of saturated fat, trans fats and dietary cholesterol, though never a statement about sugars…until now.
Though many of us may not give the guidelines much thought, the recommendations have the potential to influence the diets of millions of Americans really. They affect foods chosen for the school lunch program which feeds more than 30 million kids each school day, and they help shape national food assistance programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, which has about eight million members.
This year, the advice to cut back on sugar — specifically to limit added sugars to 10 percent of daily calories — may also lead to changes in food nutrition labels. This coming summer, the FDA proposed labels that would require food and beverage firms to disclose the amount of added sugar as a way of distinguishing it from naturally-occurring sugar in foods.
The advice to cut back on sugar echoes similar advice from the World Health Organization and other groups, which have cited evidence that lowering added sugar could reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer. Yep, sugar feeds all 4 epidemics listed above.
How COOL is that! Gotta love it when powerful truth goes mainstream. Read the rest of the NYTimes story HERE
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Stay tuned for ways to treat the loves in your life to lower glycemic sweetness using fruits and fruit juices, and naturally low carb sweeteners.