Sugar Informative Speech

Around 500 BC, sugarcane was first processed into sugar. Today sugar is added to most processed foods. In fact 80% of food items have added sugar. Sugar has a great influence on food consumption across the globe. Sugar is a part of our diet. However, I am against sugar for many reasons. I included what sugar is, its place in our diet, and what needs to be done.

So what exactly is sugar? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary sugar is, "a sweet crystallizable material that consists wholly or essentially of sucrose, and is important as a source of dietary carbohydrate and as a sweetener and preservative of other foods." Sugar naturally occurs in fruits and vegetables. Plants with the highest amount of sugar include sugar beet and sugarcane. Both are harvested, processed, and than refined. Then end product is small sweet crystals we call sugar. We add sugar to our foods and drinks for preservation, sweetness, and to add flavour. Sugar is also very addictive.

Mmm! But what happened to the sugar? That cupcake probably had about 25 to 30 grams of sugar. The sugar will enter your bloodstream. Once your pancreas detects the sugar it will release insulin. Insulin helps control the the level of sugar, so the more sugar in our blood the more insulin is needed. The insulin stores sugars in the liver, muscles, and fat cells. Wait, fat cells? That's right, eating to much processed sugar leads to weight gain. Sugar can be very fattening especially because it has 15 calories and no nutritional value. We can't burn the extra calories so it becomes fat. But what about natural sugars. Fruits and vegetables contain fibre which slows down metabolism, resulting in you feeling full longer. There is also less sugar in fruits, therefore, your blood sugar levels don't spike. This is the main reason why large quantities of processed sugar is