Put that soda can down! The percentage of children who are overweight has tripled since 1970!!

Why? Mainly, sugar. It's everywhere and in most of the foods quickly available to our kids. From catsup to salad dressings and canned soup, sugar makes it's taste known. The problem with sugar is the more you eat, the more you want. Kids and adults are gurgling down soft drinks at an all time high! The once 8-ounce sized soda is now 12-ounces and is the best-selling product in the grocery store.

We've got to stop!

Sugar Consumption Facts

In 2002, fat facts indicate that kids between the ages of 6-19 were overweight, tripling the numbers since 1980. When you add those chubby kids to the 8 out of 10 Americans over 25 who are overweight, we see that we're putting on the pounds!

It's no wonder that there is a 76% increase in type 2 diabetes in adults 30-40 years old since 1990. While the rise of obesity is actually due to a combination of factors, such as dwindling activity levels, no one could think the high sugar and fat-filled foods eaten in large portions either at home or in restaurants are helping.

Soft drinks contain 10 teaspons of sugar per 12-ounce can. Next time you're at the movies, think of the sugar in your 44 ounce soda they try to sell you for 25 cents difference over the 32 ounces. Unless you're jogging an hour a day, we just can't handle all these extra calories. And, of course no jogger enthusiast would even eat that way.

The food we do eat, needs to be full of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in order to meet our needs and avoid future health issues.

We can change just a few of our habits and make really big differences in our weight control as well as our nutrition. Soon, we should see a decrease in our headaches, joint aches, arthritis and cancer risks.

Of course, we know that our genetics certainly impact our health, but we can do a lot to avoid some of those inherited diseases, which really might have been more dependent upon our parents' and grandparents' diets.

Avoid sugar! Sugar has many names and is listed on our food labels in the following forms:

• cane sugar
• corn sweeteners
• corn syrup
• Dextrin
• Dextrose
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Glucose-fructose syrup
• High fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Malt
• Maltose
• Malt surup
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Raw sugar
• Sucrose
• Sucrose syrup
• Turbinado sugar

Whether the sugar is naturally occurring or added, to your body, the sugar in fruit is no different than the sugar in a can of soda, although the fruit comes packaged with fiber, minerals and vitamins, and the sugar in soda is just sugar and water. You can see that fruit is obviously the best choice, keeping in mind the sugar content.

If you want to determine the number of teaspoons of sugar in a food, look at the grams of sugar and divide it by 4. That's how many teaspoons of sugar the product contains. The USDA recommends no more than 10 teaspoons of added sugar per day, and most of us are consuming a week's worth, daily.

Yikes!

Nutrition Facts on Labels

It makes healthy sense to look for Reduced Sugar, meaning that the product contains 25% less sugar than its original counterpart. If the label claims sugar-free, then the foods have less than 0.5 gram of sugar per serving. However, sugar-free does not mean carbohydrate-free. No-sugar-added foods do not have any form of sugar added during processing or packaging. Natural sugars may still be in the foods. Finally, if the label claims the food item is low-calorie, it means the food contains 40 calories or less per serving. Good to know!!

Oh, Honey!

Recent research shows that honey may have some antioxidant activity. Honey also lends flavor as well as sweetness and works well in recipes designed to help reduce sugar content. Don't be fooled by "natural raw cane sugar," because it is nutritionally identical to the white stuff, with maybe just a tad more flavor from some residual molasses. Molasses does have some potassium and iron, unlike other sweeteners.

If we become label readers, we'll find that many of the foods we're consuming are full of sugar. Companies want us to buy their products repeatedly, and they know that sugar is "addictive" in habit, at least.

While diet drinks are certainly a better choice than those filled with real sugar, we are consuming drinks full of sodium and other ingredients that could hurt our health. Artificial sweeteners still cause us to crave more sweet things, when we should be trying to re-train our taste buds to enjoy textures and mild flavors of fruit and vegetables.

Best choice of food for you and the kiddos? Less processed anything, more real food.

Want a healthy snack for the whole family?

Try this Crispy, Crunchy Snack Mix:

Ingredients

• 3 cups plain popped popcorn
• 2 cups crispy corn and rice cereal
• 1 1/2 cups bite-size shredded wheat biscuits
• 3/4 cup peanuts
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard (not honey mustard)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Procedure

1. Put cereal, wheat biscuits and peanuts in a foil-lined large baking pan; set aside. Melt butter in a small saucepan. Remove from heat; stir in mustard, Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder until well mixed. Drizzle over dry cereal and nut mixture in pan, tossing gently until evenly coated.
2. Bake mixture, uncovered, in a pre-heated 330F oven for 20 minutes, genting stirring after 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Stir in popcorn. Use foil to remove baked mixture from pan; cool completely, serve.

How did you cut the sugar in this recipe? Most Dijon-style mustards are sugar-free.

With this healthy snack, I'm cravin' a movie!  Enjoy! Then, ditch the car and take a family walk!! Stay tuned for more "Cut the Sugar" recipes!