Hear me out for a second. Why would I share a sugar-infused Thanksgiving condiment on my health and wellness website? Because sometimes you need a spoon of fun with a meal and not be so hard on yourself.
Cranberries are always on my healthy list. In fact, all berries should be on your healthy list, as long as they are organic (because otherwise you’re eating pesticide-sprayed candy).
INGREDIENTS
- 3 cups (12 oz) cranberries
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
METHOD
- Combine sugar + water, stir to dissolve sugar.
- Bring to a boil, then add cranberries.
- Bring again to boil + reduce heat + cook gently for ~10 min, stirring occasionally until all berries are mashed.
- Store in fridge or freezer.
While it may seem ironic to state this here, I like to state this in as many places as I can…
The daily limit for added sugar is:
- women = 24 grams per day
- men = 36 grams per day
Added sugar is mainly relevant when you are buying processed foods in packages or baked goods (whether bought or baking yourself). On the nutrition label you will see “total sugars” – these are sugars that are naturally occurring in the foods that are part of the ingredients. And separately you will see “added sugars” – these are exactly what they say – they are added, whether from cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup, or other sugar sources.
When we talk about having a limit to the amount of added sugar per day, we do so because that’s a source of sugar (glucose and fructose) that is free form and readily absorbs into your blood and will therefore cause blood glucose spikes that are detrimental to a healthy metabolism.
For reference…
1 teaspoon = 4 grams of sugar
12 oz can of soda = average 39 grams of sugar
12 oz can of orange juice = 28 grams of sugar
What is the worst form of sugar
Whether it’s added sugar or total sugar, the worst way to ingest sugar is as a liquid. When you see the sugar in soda or orange juice, you should be thinking that these are equivalently unhealthy. So many people (and parents!) feed their kids fruit juices like orange juice, thinking it’s from fruit so it’s good. Nope nope nope.
A liquid form of sugar (juice or soda) is like having an IV stuck in your veins dripping a fast feed of sugar straight into your blood circulation. Nothing could be worse than this. Our physiology was not designed to handle this high dose of sugar at one time. So if you wonder why more and more kids are developing type II diabetes, take a look at their daily drinks.
