Americans eat a lot of sugar
 

I was playing with my soya milk maker and finally got it to output something palatable. Still thin and watery, but tastes almost like Silk.

The trick is Silk uses carageen to thicken up the milk, but I don't, so mine will be watery; but Silk also uses a lot of sugar.

I found that adding 2tbsp to 6oz of soy milk makes things ... too sweet to bear; but it would be muted if thicker, the flavor was correct. Dialed it back a bit and got something a little harsher, but not so cloying.

That's a lot of sugar, by the way. I mean, straight white sugar, seriously. That's like having 6 or 8 sugar cubes in your tea.

I found the same with imported European formula Ovaltine ... far less sugar (and a lot more complex flavor) than the stuff we get here. In fact, a lot of things are overly sweet here ... sugar seems to be a basic component of American food.

I've noticed that a lot lately: American food is extremely bland. Most American food relies on sugar or salt (snack foods especially are, most basically, salty or sweet, with slight flavor variation), with such things as bacon cheese fries (lots of salt) or pancakes (with a ton of maple syrup--and McDonalds pancakes are like CAKE!) or hamburgers that are steeped in salt while grilling (McDonalds, Wendy's, yes tons of salt added right on the grill) ...

... everything here seems to rely on a lot of salt and/or sugar.

I wonder what a European diet is like. The French subsist mostly on duck fat ...

Yesterday I found myself involuntarily at a McDonalds. Their coffee isn't terrible, so I ordered an Iced coffee. It took almost a minute of explaining and reassuring that YES all I want in my iced coffee was ICE . . . . and COFFEE!

no sugar.

no, seriously, no sugar, thanks!

Yes, just ICE and COFFEE

it went on and on and on. The cashier didn't believe me, the person making the coffee didn't believe what the cashier had typed in . . .

major facepalm moment.

Silk does make unsweetened soy milk, and I loved it. There's only one brand that doesn't offer unsweetened almond milk, and unsweetened coconut milk is readily available too. Thank God. I don't have the counter space for a milk-maker.

It's not the sugar or the fat, it's the portion size that's killing us.

Look up Mediterranean diet. That's the ticket. Yumm.

Also, if you are a Yank and you find yourself in the South, when you go to a restaurant and order iced tea, make sure you specify UN-sweet tea. Otherwise you'll get a glass of Karo syrup with a little bit of tea and a lemon slice.

This

In the two to three cups of coffee I drink per day, I have a spoon sugar in every one. I recently weighed in at a lean 65kg (143lbs) at 5ft9". I'll admit that it's the only real sweet thing I eat, apart from fruit. Just shows though, you can have the things you like and still keep lean.

I agree paulclaude, it's important to know how to enjoy things that aren't the neccesarily the healthiest. You can drink beer, you can eat dessert and not ruin your health. But of course food can be abused.
This is why I think it's a good idea to avoid soft drinks altogether. It can be addictive. A mountain dew habit can ruin your health.
Really, after drinking it very rarely, it's not even a pleasant thing to drink.

As a born and raised southerner, I can tell you that sweet tea is one of the things that makes the world go around. Sugar is out of my diet, but I WILL drink sweet tea (now on rare occasions).

Yes, sugar consumption has increased by a whopping 30% since 1983.

Well said. And I might also add, I like to enjoy a few bottles of beer every week. You'll never feel deprived if you allow yourself the things you enjoy.... :-)

If you just like to drink soy milk try adding screwpine leaf when you boil your soy milk. If you need to add sugar use palm sugar.

So has most macro nutrient categories as well. Don't believe the hype that the added calories are coming from specific sources which are being demonized right now.

http://civileats.com/2011/04/05/wher...s-infographic/

i tried Silk a while back but the excessive amount of sugar just made me sick to my stomach. i got the chocolate flavored, i wanna say 1 cup had something like 20g of sugar. i'll drink a little chocolate milk every now and then, but for the most part i'm sticking to water and tea these days.

and you know what else i hate... ordering yams/sweet potatoes at a restaurant only to find out they absolutely smother it in brown sugar and what appears to be maple syrup (or maybe that's just melted down brown sugar). i like eating fruits and veggies without a bunch of crap thrown on top (no butter, very little seasoning if any at all).

actually i love the portion sizes you see at restaurants... i easily get 2 meals (sometimes more) out of one entree when i take the leftovers home. there's a Chinese place that my wife and i get takeout from, a $10 kung pao chicken dinner will feed both of us... TWICE

what's killing us is the fact that people believe they have to eat everything that's put in front of their faces. i can't stand it when i hear someone tell their kids to "make a happy plate" (wtf does that mean anyway?). if the kid is full, don't make them eat more just because the food is there.

yep... most of the time i drink unsweetened tea, but the times i do want sweet tea i ask if they can mix it half and half (half sweet/half unsweet), and always get funny looks