Episode #13: Hidden Sugar In "Healthy" Foods

June 3, 2019

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey everybody, what's going on in Doctor Chad Woolner here and Dr Buddy Alan. And this is episode 13 of the health fundamentals podcast. And on today's episode we're going to be discussing hidden sugar in quote unquote healthy food. So let's get started.

Speaker 2: (00:15)
You're listening to the health fundamentals podcast. I'm Dr Chad Woolner and I'm Dr Buddy Alan. And this show is about giving you the simple but powerful cutting edge tools you need to change your health and your life. So sit back and enjoy the show as we show you the path to your best life down to a science.

Speaker 1: (00:34)
So, hey everybody, uh, on today's episode we've got kind of a fun one for you. We know that, uh, some of you are watching this, others are just listening. Uh, what we've got here set out in front of us are, uh, a pretty eclectic mix of some of the most popular drinks, um, that people consume. Yup. And, uh, and one of the topics that we want to discuss, uh, and, and we're going to be revisiting this topic, I think quite a bit, is this idea of how to find or how to, how to look out for hidden sugar, right? Hidden sugar is a, is a really big problem for a lot of people. Um, and unfortunately, uh, for a lot of people I think sometimes they think that they're making better choices in terms of, uh, the food that they're eating, the drinks that they're drinking.

Speaker 1: (01:25)
And the reality of it is, is that all it takes is just a little bit of, uh, uh, understanding of how to look at the labels correctly. And you'll find, I think, some pretty shocking facts in front of you. So, well, and you were mentioning before we even started this, uh, there's a good number of people that are really starting to understand this better and better and at least have a little bit of the radar going on to, to, to think about this. But, um, you know, we all know that soda is not healthy and, and you know, these high fruit toast drinks and things like that that aren't super good for us. And so, um, the, the sad part is, is a lot of people that aren't in the know, especially young people, they go from a, okay, I'm not going to drink as much soda but I'm going to do is.

Speaker 1: (02:11)
And right in front of us, Dr. Warner was saying, you know, we've got an orange juice or we've got one of these naked smoothie drinks, I'm going to replace, you know, I've been in a bad habit of drinking lots of Dr Pepper. Yup. And so instead I'm going to reach for the orange juice and I'm going to replace it with orange juice. And that's going to be a much better decision for my, there's vitamin C in it, lots of vitamin C. Fantastic. Right? So, and that's a great point there. Right? And so when we look at here, what we've got lined up, again, for those who are just listening, we've got a Tropicana orange juice. We have a naked blue machine, um, smoothie or juice drink, a blend of various juices. We have a Snapple mango madness drink. We have a fierce melon, Gatorade. Uh, we have, uh, a green machine, naked juice.

Speaker 1: (03:00)
And then what else do we got there? We've got a red bull coconut, the coconut additions, summer edition, coconut. Yummy, yummy. And then we've got, um, it's called game fueled by mountain dew. It's a, it's a new mountain dew drink, carbonated beverage. Uh, supposed to give you lots of energy for your, for your sports performance, for your sports performance. Exactly. So, well just like the Gatorade, you know, you know, so good for you because it's right. You need those electrolytes. So, so the, the, the, the point I think that's going to shock a lot of people here is like you said, I don't think it's going to take a whole lot of, I think people intuitively realize carbonated sodas and energy drinks are not good for you. I think people inherently know that. I think the problem that's going to be a little bit more challenging for people though is how to identify, uh, or, or at least come to understanding that these other drinks are in many instances no better for you.

Speaker 1: (03:59)
And even in some instances they're worse, even worse for you. So, um, so yeah. Uh, we, we just got off a Facebook live that we did for our clinic here talking about this same subject. Maybe you tuned into that, maybe it didn't. Um, but we pose the question, which of these drinks has the highest amount of sugar in it? Which one is it? Is that the orange juice? The blue machine, the mango madness, the Gatorade, the green machine, the coconut red bull or the mountain dew gimme fuel. Which one is it? Let's give him a minute to think about it for just a second. Pick your answer and then we're going to reveal the answer. I wanted to, you know, make a little statement here. Now, Doctor Walnut and I are anything but extremists when it comes to, um, really anything because we're not, we're not trying to, the whole purpose of this is not to demonize any of these drinks.

Speaker 1: (04:52)
Right? Um, the, the reality is, is we all too often see patients and people who honestly give these efforts to try to improve their health, to lose weight, to take these steps to move in a better direction, only to spin their wheels because they go from one bad thing to something they think is healthy or they think they're making the better choice and they're doing, again, in some cases even doing worse. And so it's more of a, we want people to open their eyes and start looking one at looking at labels to understanding labels. Because one of the things you'll find with some of these drinks and, and especially with drinks, but they, they do it with everything is they don't want anything to, you know, especially with calories, right? They don't want the calories to look like too many calories because then people are going to be freaked out to drink it.

Speaker 1: (05:40)
So what do they do? They basically say, oh, it's only got a 150 calories, but you know, they read the fine print and I find that that represents for one serving and that can have whatever that bottle of wine, two or two and a half and a half or three servings in it. Yeah, exactly. And so now all of a sudden what looked pretty automated and 50 calories, you know? Okay, that's okay. And even that, what you need to understand in terms of the grand scheme of things, a 150 calories represents a pretty significant portion of daily caloric intake for, for a woman, probably going to be somewhere between, um, probably 17, 1800 and a guy's going to be 2000, maybe 2100 calories a day. And everybody, and again, the thing I would say is everybody's going to be a little bit different, especially based off of if we're talking about somebody who's a high intensity athlete, obviously your caloric needs and end or demands are going to be different than uh, the, the, the typical person.

Speaker 1: (06:38)
Right? But just understand, um, calories. You know, again, calories can't be completely ignored. No. You know, calories definitely are part of the equation. Okay. So, uh, do you guys have a guess as to which one of these has the highest amount of sugar in it? It'll probably blow your mind. Well, I think first Doctor Ellen, I'll let you reveal it, but, but um, tell, tell them what it, well, I guess I'll ask you, what do you think most people would guess here as far as the highest amount of sugar in it pro? I'm guessing they would guess either the mountain dew or the red bull. That would be my guess. I would say some people might even cue in and say, because, uh, as I bought these this morning, uh, I asked the, the a cash register, a gal, the Gal at the cash register, I said to her, I said, which one of these?

Speaker 1: (07:26)
And you want to, her guess was she thought it was the orange juice. Yeah. She's like, it's the orange juice, isn't it? And I was like, no, it's not your issue. But that's a good guess. It's bad. It's high. Yeah. It's, it's really high. So a total of 51 grams of carbs in this one. This has more sugar than the, than the red bull, the rebel and the mountain dew and the mountain. In fact. Yeah. Hold on a sec. The Red Bull. I'm gonna move my glasses here. So yeah, you could almost put both of these together and it would equal the amount of carbs for that orange or that one bottle of orange juice. Is that crazy? Is that crazy? He said bull and amount. And this the, what is the red bull? It's 12 ounces. And then, uh, what is that 16 ounce can of mountain dew?

Speaker 1: (08:15)
So those together all, they're just a little bit more than that one bottle of one bottle of worn. She says crazy. So which one is it? Doctor Allan. Which one has the highest amount of sugar in it? The one that has the highest by far by, by a good long shot is this beautiful naked blue machine. All right. And it looks like a smooth, you know the naked, it's supposed to be. This healthy smoothie buys, it says a blend of forge uses with added ingredients and other natural flavors. And on the front it has, it's got vitamin C and you want to know what it says here? Two on the front. And this another way they trick you. No sugar added is what it says. So somebody looks at that, oh no sugar added. Yep. You don't need to, it's already got the money. How much does it got in it?

Speaker 1: (09:00)
71 grams of carbohydrates. 70 and I think 60 60 some odd are sugar 70. No, 76 77 76 grams of total carbs. Crazy. And the other one 76. So this other, this is again the other naked drink, the green machine, it has, um, this one is a total of 63 grams of carbs with 53 sugars. So put that in perspective. Compare that to the red bull. So 76 in the green in the blue machine. 76 grams of carbs compared to how many in the red bull. And the red bull has 38 grams. 38 grams. Sorry, 40 total. 40 total grams. So 76, so it almost has double. Yeah. Double the amount of sugar that a red bull has. That is astounding. And then which one has the lowest? The lowest is actually this, this, um, the mountain dew, mountain dew. Give me fuel. How many grams of carbs this one has.

Speaker 1: (10:05)
It's got 24 grams of total carbs. 24 grams. So don't misunderstand what we're saying here. We're not recommending an adviser that mountain dew is a good healthy drink. That's not what we're saying. What we're trying to say here. I think the, the, the first point we're trying to drive home here is if nothing else become more aware. Yeah. Um, become more aware of what's out there. Start looking at labels, figuring out the ways in which, uh, manufacturers of these foods and beverages, uh, can, can hide things, you know, in plain sight. So, and again, the other side, other side of that we had talked about earlier was for instance, this Gatorade. Yes. You know, and it doesn't, when you look at the label, you're like, oh, it's only got 22 grams of carbs. That's not bad. But then when you pan up and you look at the top, oh, that's, there's two and a half servings here.

Speaker 1: (10:57)
So now you're looking at 50 some odd grams of carbs in this one Gatorade. Right? Right. So again, uh, they just, they play with our minds, be aware, learn to look at the labels and learned to understand and then learn to understand what you need for what you're doing. Yeah. And, and again, I think in terms of moderation, the biggest thing that I would simply say, uh, is, you know, if you think that you're going to get healthy by consistently drinking, um, fruit juices for the vitamins and the minerals and things like that, just understand that is a recipe for disaster. That is a recipe for a tremendous amount of frustration and heartache and disappointment for people who are trying to either lose weight or get healthy. Because unfortunately these things are anything but healthy. Now again, I would just simply reiterate too, that's not to demonize any of these drinks.

Speaker 1: (11:48)
If you want to have a drink like this. Every now and again, you know, and again, this is a, you know, it's going to be dependent upon your situation. If you're somebody who's struggling with say type two diabetes or neuropathy or some sort of an autoimmune condition and probably you're going to need to be even more strict than that. Um, but for the typical person having a drink like this every now and again, um, you know, again, it's one of those things where we need to look at the big picture here and not fixate and chase after. I think so many people these days are, um, you know, demonizing Wa, you know, straining at gnats. I think this is the, is the big thing that happens. And so I think what we have to understand is look at the big picture. It's about making sure that we find ways to reduce the amount of carbohydrates and sugar we put into our body because we know just not good for us.

Speaker 1: (12:39)
Um, but then also looking for better choices. So, um, yeah, anything you would recommend to them as an alternative to these besides water, obviously water's going to be a better way to go. Um, anything you'd recommend? Oh, goodness. You know what I liked? I can't remember what it's called. Um, oh gosh. They give it to, they gave, the first time I had it was after a, um, uh, we, I finished a spartan race. It was, uh, the heck was it called fit aid? Fit Aid. Oh, yes. There's, those are delicious. Yeah. Yeah. I want to say it's only got like 12 carbs. It's got an carbonation. It's a citrusy, they're loaded with B vitamins is actually, and honestly, it's the same price as just about any one of these things fit. It's a good way to go. It's been pretty, pretty dang good. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I would say to, you know, if you like the carbonation, uh, reach for a Pellegrino or a Perrier, you know, um, if you'd like the carbonation, you know, and, and a little lime or lemon with that is fabulous.

Speaker 1: (13:43)
Absolutely. Um, the thing that you're gonna also need to, and this is a whole different topic for another subject or for another show that we could do is be aware too, that you're not escaping problems by drinking diet sodas, your bus. Well, you know, there's, that's a whole nother issue. There've been other, can there've been a, there've been a lot of studies that have been done showing, uh, in fact there was one recently, um, that showed a dramatic increased risk of stroke associated with drinking diet sodas, consistent, consistent, uh, consumption of, uh, of Diet Soda. So, um, just be aware there are sugar hidden in plain sight everywhere. Uh, just because you think what you're drinking is healthy doesn't necessarily make it healthy. Um, learn to read the labels on the back, look for it. Um, no, what you're looking at, know the ways in which these various manufacturers like to hide things and trick us and uh, do, do sorts of manipulative tactics to, to massage out the numbers and make the data look okay.

Speaker 1: (14:41)
Uh, anything else that you would, um, no, just in the grand scheme of things, if you're, if you're someone looking to either lose weight or struggles with, you know, maybe you put weight on very easily. Um, one of the biggest things you could do to limit a tremendous amount of calories out of your diet, your daily intake would be to avoid drinking your calories, drink your calories. It's way too easy to drink a load of calories, um, in the liquids. And, and again, it doesn't give you any kind of satiety. That doesn't make me feel full as just as just like empty calories that really run up your caloric intake really fast. So, I mean, if that's again why I said earlier, we're not extremists in like, oh, you can't ever enjoy anything again, but be smart. You know, don't, don't be trying to put forth an honest effort and think that, oh, if I'm being good everywhere else, I can still drink soda. Be Smart. That's all. No, that's great. Awesome. Well, I hope this has been valuable for your guys and uh, we look forward to sharing even more with you guys on upcoming episodes. We'll talk to you later. See you soon.

Speaker 2: (15:50)
Thanks for listening to the health fundamentals podcast. Be sure to subscribe so that you stay in the loop. And in the note with all of the cutting edge health information that we share, if you know other people that could benefit from this information, please share it with them as well. Also, be sure to give us some reviews. These really help us to ultimately help more people. Last but not least, if you have questions that you want answered live on the show, or if you have ideas for topics that you would like us to cover, please shoot us an email and let us know at Info@thehealthfundamentals.com

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