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Sugar gives
foods and drinks a sweet taste. The trouble is, it's absolutely everywhere,
so you probably eat much more than you need. Click on the links below
to find out about sugar. You can find out more by clicking on the links below. Activity sheets on fat, salt and sugar
Sugary foods provide lots of energy in a form that our bodies can quickly use. We need energy to live and breathe and even to sleep. Sugar has 4 kcalories of energy
in every gram - about 20 kcalories in a teaspoon of sugar. Protein and complex carbohydrates also contain 4 kcalories of energy in every gram, and fat contains 9 kcalories. But our bodies take longer to digest these, so the energy takes longer to get to us. Sugar energy is almost immediate. It's easy to consume more energy than we need because sugar is added to so many foods and drinks. When your body has more sugar
than it needs for energy it begins to convert the sugar into body fat
and stores it. So if you don't do enough exercise, and keep on eating
lots of sugar, your body could become bigger and bigger.
When you haven't eaten for a while, your legs get wobbly. You stop being able to concentrate. These are signals from your body that its store of energy is getting low. All food contains energy.
Some foods release their energy quickly, and some release it slowly.
Sugar releases energy quickly. Foods like bread, cereal
and bananas release energy more slowly. So when you eat toast, cereal
or a banana, your energy lasts longer than if you had sweets or a fizzy
drink. Sugar is 'empty calories'
Each gram of sugar has about 4 kcalories of energy - but that's all - it provides no other nutritional benefit. Sometimes sugar is used to
sweeten healthy foods, to make sour foods more edible. In that way,
it can help us to eat a wide range of foods. But when a very high amount
of sugar is added to food, a lot of people start to question whether
the sugar is doing any good. Maybe it's just giving us too much energy
and getting us used to the flavour of over-sweet food. Mmm, sugar tastes good!
Seeking energy, our bodies were designed to recognise and love sweet tastes. This made sense when the only sweet things around were seasonal fruit and vegetables and perhaps some wild honey. But today, sugary foods are
available everywhere. You're probably only a few hundred metres from
a shop selling sweet foods right now, in the form of sweets, chocolate
and drinks. They're not very expensive and they're everywhere. This
is why it's so easy to eat too much sugar.
If you keep food for a long time, it rots. It turns to goo. Rotting is caused by tiny bugs (bacteria) and fungi (mould) which move onto our food and start to feed on it themselves. But as they eat the food, the bacteria and fungus give out chemicals that taste horrible, and which may even poison you. We can slow the growth of bacteria and fungal growth (mould) by keeping our food cold in fridges. We can also stop our food rotting by using natural preservatives such as sugar, vinegar and salt. Bacteria and mould hate to live in places full of sugar, vinegar or salt. Jam is simply
fruit preserved in sugar. Pickles are vegetables preserved in vinegar
and bacon is meat preserved with salt. Stop! Don't feed the bacteria
Brushing your teeth twice a day can help to sweep the bacteria away. And cutting back on sugary snacks and drinks can starve them into submission.
Got this far? Then click here to find out some amazing facts about sugar!
Click here to download activity sheets on the subject of fat, salt and sugar.
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Sugar gives you energy
Ride the sugar roller-coaster
The energy provided by sugar is sometimes called 'empty calories'
because sugar doesn't provide anything else except energy. Sugar doesn't
contain any of the proteins, minerals or vitamins that your body needs.
Have you ever wondered why you like the taste of sweet
things? What's so special about sugary foods and drinks? 
Sorry. Bad
news. If you eat a lot of sugar, especially in the form of frequent
sugary snacks and drinks, you're likely to end up with holes in your
teeth.
All of us have
bacteria in our mouths which love to feast on the sugary snacks and
drinks which pass by our teeth. As they feed, the bacteria give out
chemicals that dissolve the white coating on teeth. 
