Most desserts are packed with lots of sugar. You can hardly find any desserts that are savory, right? Even healthy desserts can contain unhealthy sugar.
Do you know which kinds of sugars are healthy and which kinds are not?
This is important to know.
The reason for this is that sugar affects your body in many different ways.
The negative effects of sugar
Sugar can kill you. If you keep on drinking sugar-filled carbonated drinks, you’re likely to die at an earlier age. This information isn’t to alarm you, but it’s true. The more you eat sugary treats or healthy desserts that contain hidden sugars, the higher is the chance that you’ll possibly die from diabetes or disease. And don’t forget the impact sugar can have on heart disease.
Sugar cannot mend a broken heart—it can actually damage it.
Heart damage isn’t only an indirect result of eating too much sugar; there’s an actual correlation between heart disease and sugar. Sugar can affect the way your heart pumps, which can cause heart problems.
Now that you know about these alarming reasons why you need to cut back on your sugar intake and eat more healthy desserts, here are some of the bad sugars that you need to take note of.
Brown sugar
Brown sugar is often used in not-so-healthy desserts; but sometimes you can also see this in recipes that are thought of as healthy desserts. Brown sugar comes from molasses after the latter has been subjected to heat; and does contain certain nutrients. This is perhaps the reason why many still use this kind of sugar in healthy desserts. However, while it may contain some nutrients, it still remains the same sugar.
White sugar
If brown sugar contains certain nutrients, white sugar, even when used in some healthy desserts is pure refined sugar—in other words, this is a simple carbohydrate packed with empty calories.
Demerara sugar
Another kind of sugar which comes from sugarcane is Demerara sugar. Some people call this kind of sugar “turbinado sugar”. Even though this is a type of sugar, it’s still considered a healthier choice, and is often used to make healthy desserts, such as cookies and the like. This sugar is a healthier option since it contains molasses and provides certain amounts of nutrients, such as potassium, iron and calcium
Sugar alcohol
This is a mix of sugar and alcohol, and is touted as a healthier alternative to regular white table sugar. It may be considered a healthier option, but you need to remember that this kind of sugar contains more calories. Examples of sugar alcohol included Xylitol and Sorbitol. One warning, though; you should not ingest large amounts of this kind of sugar because it can cause gastrointestinal problems.
Sugar can come in all forms. One thing is for sure, though; certain sugars are not good for you.