Sugar...it's not so sweet | Calgary Avansino | TEDxMoorgate

Transcriber: Riaki Poništ Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs About two weeks ago, I was speaking at a school in California about

sugar

. And when I finished, a six-year-old boy, an adorable little boy, came up to me and said, "But I don't have to worry about that because I don't eat a lot of

sugar

." So I squatted down with him and started chatting with him. And I said, "What do you usually have for breakfast?" And he said, "Well, what I like best is white bread with jam." And I said, "What do you eat for snack?" "Usually a packet of chips or a bag of chips," he said. "And what do you like for lunch?" "Well, usually, my favorite Lunchables pack." "And how was dinner?" "Well, most of the time I eat white pasta with cookies." (Laughter) "But," he said, "I'm the healthiest kid in my class." So we'll come back to this child later in my talk.

Right now, April 2016, we are faced with this situation: 1.9 billion people around the world are overweight. That means they have a body mass index of 25 or higher. Another 650 million people worldwide are classified as obese. That means they have a body mass index of 30 or higher. Twenty per cent of all ten-year-olds in the UK are obese and a further 15% are overweight. And 400 million people around the world struggle with type 2 diabetes. Now, that is a very sad situation. But let's look now ten years from now. The most conservative projections say that 20% of the world's population will be obese. And many doctors and many researchers absolutely believe that number will be 50%.

By 2025, one in ten people will have type 2 diabetes, and countries we don't normally associate with obesity - Latin America, Central America, China and the Middle East - will be struggling with large increases in obesity and lifestyle-related diseases. life. . So if those statistics impact you as much as they did when I met them, I want us to think in this room. That means that between 20 and 50% of all people cannot work efficiently, move well and, crucially, be happy or content. Let's look at this room. There are 100 people in this room. There are ten rows. There are ten people in each row.

Look down your row. That means up to five people in each row would be obese, have type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other lifestyle diseases. This is a very important public health problem and it can be prevented. So how did we come this far from 100 years ago, when obesity really wasn't a problem? Well, first of all, our lifestyles are drastically different. But today I want to talk about our food culture and our eating habits, which would be unrecognizable to our great-grandparents. Yes, we need to move more; yes, we need to sweat more; Our kids need to watch fewer video games and get outdoors more, but that's not why I just read the statistics I read.

It is mainly and a lot about the food we eat. So let's think about a table, a table of food 100 years ago. There would be meat from a local butcher or a local ranch. There were local and seasonal fruits and vegetables, often bought by someone you knew. There were no processed snacks; There actually wasn't any sandwich. Food was cooked at home and eaten as a family. None of that was processed. None of it was manufactured. And it was all real food, the food came from the energy of the sun growing in the ground. Now let's look at a meal today.

Very similar to that little six year old's food. It often starts with a bowl of cereal that comes from a box containing high fructose corn syrup. A snack is taken out of a package, lunch is a fast food restaurant, a snack is a chocolate bar and a Coke, and dinner is something you can maybe put in the microwave for five minutes, four minutes and it's done. made. And of course, dessert. So the most important element we need to look at is how all of that is processed. All of that is manufactured food and none of it is real.

It's unreal food. And the most harmful element of that unreal food that I want to talk about today is sugar. Sugar, sugar, sugar: it's everywhere. If you walk out of the produce section of any supermarket and look into any other aisle, you'll see that it's flooded with sugar-filled products. I'm going to talk to you about a happy marriage, called processed food and sugar. They are connected at the hip, never fight, and are madly in love. Those two together are what are causing these epidemics and this crisis. And it's not just sugary stuff you might expect. It's not just about candy,

sweet

s and soft drinks.

They are salty things; They are unexpected elements; They are dressings; They are bread products; They are dairy products. That's all. That's why I want to talk about how much sugar the average person here in Britain consumes weekly. That's 20 teaspoons of sugar. Now, the World Health Organization and doctors, researchers and scientists, people who know what they're talking about, say that our bodies can't handle more than seven teaspoons, or 30 grams, of sugar per day. Six: Some people even say six, and children should take five teaspoons. The average Briton eats 20 teaspoons of sugar a day. Per day. And we should not eat more than seven teaspoons per day.

So, I'm talking about grams, and I'm talking about teaspoons, and it's a little confusing because until the labeling regulations change, all the food you see in grocery stores, all the food you see in fast food restaurants or chains quick service is in grams. And that is difficult for us to visualize. But if we can visualize teaspoons, it will be much easier. So the equation you need to keep in mind is that four grams of sugar equals one teaspoon. Four grams of sugar are equivalent to one teaspoon. Because if you can visualize that that bowl of cereal you're thinking about giving your child to start the day has four teaspoons of sugar, you're going to think twice.

But somehow grams confuse us a little. So I'm going to do a little experiment with us. Here are the 20 teaspoons of sugar that people eat per day, and these are the seven teaspoons of sugar we should eat every day. Now, first, I'm going to go over a meal that I consider a pretty unhealthy day of eating. But I must remind you that many people around the world would not consider this a day of unhealthy foods. Let me find my bad bag. So, we'll start with a bowl of average sugar cereal, which contains three teaspoons of sugar, and a muffin, which contains five teaspoons.

Then you go have a Coca-Cola at 11 in the morning, which is ten teaspoons of sugar. Then you'll have a fried chicken sandwich with honey barbecue sauce and some fries, and that's six teaspoons of sugar. A KitKat at 3 p.m., 2.5 teaspoons of sugar, a double cheeseburger, fries with ketchup, three teaspoons of sugar, a gin and tonic, 3.5 teaspoons, (Laughter) and a bowl of ice cream and some cookies , that's nine teaspoons. Well. You laugh, but that is a reality for many, many people. And the grand total is 42 teaspoons of sugar. How many are we supposed to have per day?

Seven. Well. Now I'm going to make a jar, which many of you might assume is a very healthy day of meals. So we're going to start with a bowl of granola, which is three teaspoons of sugar. A glass of orange juice, which is four teaspoons of sugar. A healthy bar and an Innocent shake, nine teaspoons of sugar. A salad with creamy French dressing, two teaspoons of sugar. A low-fat vanilla yogurt with chopped fresh mango, 14 teaspoons of sugar. A teriyaki chicken dinner with fried rice, three teaspoons of sugar. And no dessert. And that total is 32 teaspoons of sugar.

So, some of you probably found it pretty surprising, right? So even if you're thinking, "This lady isn't talking to me. I don't drink a lot of Coca-Cola. I don't eat a lot of

sweet

s," I guarantee you eat more sugar than you think. , and definitely more of what is good for you. So while we have these numbers floating around in our heads, I want to show you some other examples of the amount of sugar in certain items. And some of them are candy, and you'll say, "Obviously, they have sugar." I don't show them to you for that reason.

I show them to you because I want you to see how much sugar they have. They have a lot. Some of them, this "snack" that you might eat two or three times a week, contains more than what we are supposed to consume per day. So let's start with some granola. A bowl, four teaspoons of sugar. These fruit and nut bites contain four and a half teaspoons of sugar. Please keep in mind the seven teaspoons of sugar we are supposed to consume per day. Petits Filous, any of you who have children know that the children will beg you to buy them.

Nobody eats just one; They look like a mouthful in themselves. Two of them are 2.9 teaspoons of sugar. Tomato soup, 4.85 teaspoons of sugar. Baked beans, the country's favorite, 4.9 teaspoons of sugar. The Twix bar, and definitely no one eats one of these, costs six teaspoons for two bars. Mars Bar, 7.6 teaspoons. So now we exceed our daily limit on our snack alone. Flavored fruit water, healthy flavored fruit water, 8.5 teaspoons of sugar. Jelly Babies (not the entire package, just eight of the babies) contain 10 teaspoons of sugar. Raspberry jam that you put on the toast, 100 grams, which is around there, is 12 teaspoons of sugar.

The beloved Coca-Cola, 13.5 teaspoons of sugar. Red Bull, seven teaspoons of sugar. And a bottle of Lucozade, 15.5 teaspoons of sugar. So we all need to make changes. We need to make changes in the way we eat. We need to make changes to the way we shop, for ourselves, but also for our families and, most importantly, for our children. So there are five ways I want you to try to make changes in your life. First, don't assume something is healthy just because it says "natural" or "light" on the label, or just because you've always eaten it, or just because it's always been in your kitchen.

Start turning over everything you buy, looking at the back, paying attention to the ingredients. If there are tons of words you don't understand, put them back on the shelf. If it's loaded with sugar, put it back on the shelf. The second thing I want you to do is learn about all these sneaky ways brands add sugar to foods. I have given you a brochure. There are hundreds of different words that products use for the word "sugar." Just because it doesn't say S-U-G-A-R on the ingredients list doesn't mean it's loaded with sugar. So educate yourself on that.

The third thing: remember your numbers. Four grams are equivalent to one teaspoon. That's your equation so you can visualize those teaspoons in your head when you shop for yourself, when you shop for your kids, and when you feed them. And remember, your goal should be seven teaspoons of sugar a day. Try to do less, but aim for seven teaspoons per day. Number four: think about my happy couple, processed food and sugar. This is the most important thing. We need to stop eating so much processed food and sugar. I called my book "Keep It Real" because the most important thing people need to do is start eating real food, food that has grown in the land.

That's what we should eat. Start cooking as many days of the week as you can. Cook with your children on the weekends. Bring cooked leftovers to lunch. If you make that change and start eating real food, a change will happen. Number five: remember that you are in control of what you buy. If you don't want to eat certain foods, if you don't want your family to eat certain foods, don't buy them. Don't bring it to your house. Because if it's not in your house you're not going to eat it. If we all make changes, we can have a healthier, happier future, and maybe that little six-year-old won't be a depressing statistic.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. (Applause)