From demerara to gula djawa: hidden sugars are very difficult to recognize
Powdered sugar, brown sugar and cane sugar are delicious on pancakes, in tea or for baking a cake. Because sugar makes our lives a little tastier. But it is also an unhealthy cause of weight gain, and you take that into account too—or so you think. You actually eat much more sugar than you realize, because many hidden sugars are difficult to recognize due to their unfamiliar names.
Rapadura, demerara, turbinado, maltose, castor melis and gula djawa—have you ever heard of any of these names? I hadn’t, at least. They are all names for sugar. Eating a little sugar is of course not the problem, but because it is now found in almost everything, often under unfamiliar names, we eat far too much of it. Adults eat an average of about 20 kilos of sugar per year, and children as much as 26.5!
Hidden sugar
The problem is hidden sugar: the term for sugar that has been added to products in which you do not expect sugar to be present, meaning you do not recognize it as such. Many people know that there is sugar in ketchup and pasta sauce, but did you know that sugar is also found in processed meats, canned vegetables, crackers and bread?
Why sugar?
Why do manufacturers keep putting more and more sugar in everything? There are several reasons. First of all, we are all somewhat addicted to that sweet taste and automatically want to eat more of it. Sugar is also an inexpensive ingredient, gives products ‘extra’ flavor and helps them last longer. The latter is why, for example, sugar is found in chicken fillet and luncheon meat.
Recognizing hidden sugar
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