12.14.2015
This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.
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Brazilians consume far more sugar per day than recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to recent WHO definition, the ideal is that the intake of this nutrient no more than 5% of the daily value for calories, being acceptable up to 10%. However, the Brazilian reached 16.3%, according to a study with data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (POF) 2008-2009. The recommendation relates to sugar products added to and present in food such as honey and fruit juice.
Hidden sugar
If an industrialized food tastes sweet, you can suspect that the amount of sugar present in it is huge. Unfortunately, today we can not know precisely the amount present in Brazilian products because, by law, this information is optional. In nutrition label, it is mandatory to include only the carbohydrate content; if you like, the manufacturer also indicates how these carbohydrates is sugar.
In some countries, like Canada, is required not only report the amount of sugar as also specify how much was added to the product - differentiating it from that naturally present in the ingredients used. Similar rule is being discussed in the United States.
How to find out if you have sugar?
To circumvent the lack of information on the nutritional table sugar, the way is to look at the ingredient list on the label. It shows the ingredients in descending order, ie the first item on the list is what is present in greater amounts in the product and the latter to a lesser. Thus, if the sugar is one of the listed former, now you can know that the product is very sweet.
Other names for sugar
The tip of looking at the ingredient list does not always work so well. Some manufacturers do, to mask the presence and amount of nutrient use various forms of sugar, with different names in the same product.
The sugar or other ingredients used to sweeten foods can appear as white / refined sugar, raw sugar, granulated sugar, icing sugar, invert sugar, brown sugar, glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, and corn syrup, juice sugarcane, sugar crystals, dextrose, glucose, corn syrup, maltodextrin, honey, molasses / molasses, nectars, maple syrup and malt syrup.
To circumvent the lack of information on the nutritional table sugar, the way is to look at the ingredient list on the label
To circumvent the lack of information on the nutritional table sugar, the way is to look at the ingredient list on the label
Photo: FreeDigitalFotos
(Source: Idec)
Source: Consumidor.gov
To access the Consumidor.gov site, click here.
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This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.