Now we get it...

OK, in my last post I talked about sugar in breakfast cereal using a standard 100g serving size, but wait a minute, the cereal companies don't use a standard serving size. For example, General Mills Cheerios. The standard serving was 100g with 6g of sugar. However, to deemphasise the sugar content, General Mills has its serving size on the package, as 1 cup which works out be only 28g. Lucky Charms on the other hand, has a serving size of 3/4 cup at 27g and shows 11g of sugar. Think about it! 27g serving with 11g of sugar? A baby could eat 3/4 of cup, one Lucky Charm at a time.

Now here's the real concern. Check out the number of calories in soda pop. The average carbonated cola drink with caffeine contains 11g of sugar or 42 calories in 100g serving size. Therefore, a normal 12 fl. oz. can has 370g of liquid with 155.4 calories. Just for a reality check, 100g of granulated sugar is about 1/2 cup and contains 387 calories. So a can of soda has roughly 1/4 cup of sugar.

The point is obvious. Many of the common food substances are nothing more than sugar delivery systems. One was to combat the growing obesity problem is become more aware of what you are eating and what it contains. Fortunately, all of that information is on-line in a format that avoids the pitfalls created by the manufacturers and gives you a standard measuring system so that two dissimilar foods can be conveniently compared.