Sunday, October 2, 2011

Sugar Series Starting this week!

This week ABCD Eat Right is starting a month long series on Sugar sugar SUGAR! Where does sugar come from and how much is in the foods that our kids eat? Important and timely questions with Halloween and all the holidays starting up. To kick off the series I decided to track how much sugar our 5 year old son ate during one school day. I took a tally of what Jackson ate during one 24 hour period. I read food labels and searched the site Sugar Stacks.com to determine the amount of grams of sugar. I separated the different types of sugar into 2 categories: Added sugar and naturally occurring sugar. If a food has sugar (or equivalent) listed in the food ingredients then it had added sugar. Some foods may have had both and in that case I made an educated guess by comparisons of other products. The results for Jackson's sugar tracking trek are listed below.


Food item                                       Added sugar (grams)                     Naturally-added sugar (grams)
Annie’s fruity bunny cereal (1 CUP)         10                                                                                          
Milk 2% 1½ cup                                                                                                            18
2 pieces whole wheat bread                      2
2 Tablespoons Peanut butter(JIFF)             3                                                             
½ Tablespoon honey                                                                                                     8
Cheese stick                                                   0                                                               0
Cereal trail mix (cheerios, raisins, fruity cereal)   10                                              17

GoGo Squeeze Applesauce pouch                                                                              9

½ cup grapes                                                                                                                  18

1 squeeze yogurt                                             8                                                              2

4 pieces whole wheat bread                         4

2 slices cheese                                                  0                                                              0

½ cup rice and beans                                                                                                      15

                Total                                                  37 grams                                                87 grams

The recommendation for added sugar is 7-12 teaspoons per day or 30-46 grams per day. The recommendation for naturally occurring sugar is not defined.
I think he did pretty well!  :)
If you would like a sugar tracker sheet for your child then just let me know. Email me at Brandi@Abcdeatright.com

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