Part of maintaining a balanced diet is knowing what to avoid — and a new study shows that some so-called “healthy” choices could be hiding a glut of added sugar and saturated fat.
The US government’s 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends limiting added sugar and saturated fat to less than 10% of your daily calories.
Yet only 30% to 40% of adults meet that mark — and those who don’t face an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.
Why is it so hard to keep the bad stuff to a minimum? New research from The Ohio State University suggests “stealthy” sources are to blame, abetting us in unknowingly exceeding our limits.
The study, published last month in the journal Nutrients, identifies obvious offenders like cheese and soft drinks and other seemingly innocent sources of saturated fat and sugar, like chicken breast and ketchup.
“Chicken breast is promoted as a lower saturated fat food, but it still has a little bit of saturated fat,” said first study author Christopher Taylor, an OSU professor and director of medical dietetics. “It is helpful to know how foods with smaller amounts also slowly add saturated fat in a stealthy way into the diet.”
Taylor and his team analyzed dietary data from over 36,300 US adults who participated in a nutrition survey from 2005 to 2018.
The original intention was to develop a research tool to streamline dietary assessments, but the study also serves to encourage consumers to be mindful of reading nutrition labels and alert them to surprising sources of fat and sugar and how those choices add up over the course of a day and a lifetime.
“Nearly half of the intakes of added sugars from adults were from five sources: soft drinks, tea, fruit drinks, cakes and pies, and sugar and honey,” the researchers wrote in their findings. “The top sources of added sugars for persons over 70 years were ice cream and frozen dairy desserts, cookies and brownies, and jams, syrups, and toppings.”
Tomato-based condiments, cereal bars, energy drinks and yeast bread are also contributing to added sugar intake, the study found.
Also beware of saturated fat in cold cuts, cream substitutes, fried potatoes and whole milk.
Using the data and their findings, the team is devising an app to help people assess specific “nutrients of concern” in all foods, even those deemed healthy, to make smarter, more informed dietary choices.
