好英语网2020年，少糖之年
Here’s the last New Year’s health resolution you might ever need: resolve to stop eating added sugar.
归根结底你只需要这么一个新年健康决心：停止食用添加糖。
While you might think you’re not eating much sugar, chances are you’re eating a lot more than you realize. Added sugar lurks in nearly 70 percent of packaged foods and is found in breads, health foods, snacks, yogurts, most breakfast foods and sauces. The average American eats about 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day (not counting the sugars that occur naturally in foods like fruit or dairy products). That’s about double the recommended limit for men (nine teaspoons) and triple the limit for women (six teaspoons). For children, the limit should be about three teaspoons of added sugar and no more than six, depending on age and caloric needs.
虽然你可能觉得自己吃的糖不多，但很可能你摄入的比你意识到的要多得多。它潜藏在近70%的包装食品中，面包、健康食品、零食、酸奶、大多数早餐食品和酱汁内都含有添加糖。美国人平均每天摄入约17茶匙添加糖（不包括水果或奶制品等食物中天然存在的糖）。这大约是男性最高摄取量（9茶匙）的2倍，女性最高摄取量（6茶匙）的3倍。对于儿童来说，根据年龄和热量的需要，添加糖的限制应该在3茶匙左右，最多不超过6茶匙。
Cutting added sugar isn’t about dieting and deprivation, and you don’t have to count calories or cut fat. In fact, when you stop eating foods with added sugar, you’ll replace them with foods that taste even better. And yes, you can still have dessert.
减少添加糖并不意味着节食和剥夺自己喜欢吃的东西，也无需计算卡路里或减少脂肪。事实上，一旦停止食用添加糖食物，你会用味道更好的食物来代替它们。而且，是的，你仍然可以吃甜点。
Whether you are thin or fat, you can benefit by reducing the sugar in your diet. “It’s not about being obese, it has to do with metabolic health,” says Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the first to raise the alarm about the health risks of added sugar. (His 90-minute lecture called Sugar: The Bitter Truth has been viewed more than nine million times since 2009.)
无论你是瘦还是胖，减少饮食中的糖分都可以令你获益。“这与肥胖无关，而是与新陈代谢健康有关，”加州大学旧金山分校(University of California, San Francisco)儿科内分泌学教授罗伯特·勒斯蒂格(Robert Lustig)博士说。他是最早就添加糖的风险发出警告的人之一。他的90分钟演讲《糖：苦涩的真相》(Sugar: The Bitter Truth)，自2009年以来已经被观看了900多万次。
“Sugar turns on the aging programs in your body,” Dr. Lustig says. “The more sugar you eat, the faster you age.”
“糖会启动你体内的衰老程序，”勒斯蒂格说。“吃的糖越多，变老的速度就越快。”
A number of health authorities, ranging from the World Health Organization to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, which issues national dietary guidelines for Americans, agree that cutting back on added sugars is a good idea. And critics like Dr. Lustig believe that the case against sugar is as strong as the case against smoking or excess alcohol. (These recommendations have come under attack by groups with ties to the food industry.)
从世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)到发布美国国家膳食指南的美国疾病预防与健康促进办公室(Office of Disease Prevention and health Promotion)，许多卫生机构都认为减少添加糖是个好主意。像勒斯蒂格这样的批评人士认为，反对摄取糖的理由和反对吸烟或酗酒一样有力。（这些建议遭到了与糖业有关的团体的攻击。）
Yet many of us who wouldn’t dream of smoking or getting drunk on a daily basis might be unknowingly undermining our health by eating too much sugar.
许多人从来没想过每天吸烟喝酒这种事，然而却可能因为吃了太多的糖，从而不知不觉地损害了健康。
“Sugar Belly”
“糖肚”
Many scientists now believe that added sugar is a main culprit in the obesity epidemic, but normal-weight people can suffer the same health problems associated with too much sugar. A 15-year study found that eating high amounts of added sugar doubles the risk of heart disease, even for people who aren’t overweight. Added sugar has also been implicated in an increased risk for Type 2 diabetes, cancer, stroke and even Alzheimer’s disease.
如今许多科学家认为，添加糖是肥胖流行的罪魁祸首，但体重正常的人也会因摄入过多的糖而出现同样的健康问题。一项历时15年的研究发现，即使对不超重的人来说，摄入大量添加糖也会令心脏病的风险增加一倍。添加糖还会增加患上2型糖尿病、癌症、中风甚至阿尔茨海默病的风险。
And too much added sugar in your diet can damage your liver, similarly to the way that alcohol can. About a third of American adults and 13 percent of children have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition linked to added sugar consumption that is on the rise and that can progress to serious, even deadly, liver illness.
饮食中添加太多的糖会损害肝脏，就像酒精一样。大约三分之一的美国成年人和13%的儿童患有非酒精性脂肪肝，这种情况与食用添加糖的增加有关，并可能发展成严重的甚至致命的肝病。
We’ve all seen the beer belly associated with drinking too much alcohol. Consuming too much added sugar can lead to a similar condition called “sugar belly,” in which your waist is bigger than your hips. Sugar belly can arise when the liver repeatedly detects more fructose, a form of sugar found in fruits that is also added to many processed foods, than our bodies can use. To deal with it, the liver breaks down the extra fructose and changes it to fat globules, which are then exported into the bloodstream and deposited around your internal organs and your midsection.
我们都见过与过量饮酒有关的啤酒肚。摄入过多的添加糖会导致类似的“糖肚”，也就是腰围比臀围粗。“糖肚”的发生，是因为肝脏反复检测到果糖（水果中存在的一种糖，也被添加到许多加工食品中）超过人体所需。为了解决这个问题，肝脏会把多余的果糖分解成脂肪球，然后这些脂肪球会进入血液，沉积在内脏和腹部周围。
Fruit vs. Fructose
水果与果糖
But isn’t sugar a natural food? That’s a counter argument often promoted by the sugar industry, but there is nothing natural about the way most of us eat added sugar. When you eat a strawberry or other fruit, you are eating fructose in its natural state, and it comes with a number of micronutrients plus fiber, which slows absorption and the rate at which sugar enters your bloodstream. So yes, it’s O.K. to eat fruit! Your body can handle fructose when it’s eaten as whole fruit.
难道糖不是天然食物吗？这是制糖业经常宣扬的一种相反的观点，但我们大多数人摄入添加糖的方式并不天然。当你吃草莓或其他水果时，你吃的是天然状态的果糖，其中含有若干种微量元素和纤维，会降低吸收速度和糖分进入血液的速度。所以，吃水果是没问题的！当你以食用水果的方式摄入果糖，你的身体可以应付。
But the fructose found in ultraprocessed foods and beverages is concentrated from corn, beets and sugar cane, and much or all of the fiber and nutrients have been removed. Without the fiber to slow it down, your body gets a big dose of fructose that can wreak havoc.
但是，在超加工食品和饮料中的果糖是从玉米、甜菜和甘蔗中浓缩出来的，而且大部分甚至全部的纤维和营养成分已被去除。没有纤维来减慢摄入速度，你的身体会一下子摄取大量的果糖，从而造成破坏。
High consumption of processed fructose also can dull your body’s reaction to the brain hormone leptin, which is a natural appetite suppressant. A condition called “leptin resistance” can develop among high-sugar eaters, and the brain stops getting the message to stop eating, leading to weight gain.
大量食用加工过的果糖还会使人体对脑激素瘦素的反应减弱，这是一种抑制食欲的天然激素。高糖饮食者会出现一种称为“瘦素抵抗”的疾病，大脑会停止获取停止进食的信息，从而导致体重增加。
And increasingly, the scientific community is acknowledging the addictive nature of the fructose in processed foods and beverages. Brain scan studies show that fructose affects the dopamine system, a messenger center in the brain that controls how we experience pleasure. Eating lots of added sugar can create changes in the brain similar to those found in people who are addicted to cocaine and alcohol, and it’s one reason so many of us find ourselves craving sweets.
科学界越来越多地认识到果糖在加工食品和饮料中的成瘾性。大脑扫描影像研究表明，果糖会影响大脑的信使中心多巴胺系统，该系统控制着我们对愉悦感的体验。摄入大量的添加糖会导致大脑的变化，这与那些对可卡因和酒精成瘾的人产生的变化是相似的，这也是我们许多人发现自己渴望甜食的原因之一。
Cutting sugar is a simple concept, but it can be challenging when a majority of foods available in supermarkets contain added sugar. Gary Taubes, author of “The Case Against Sugar” and an advocate of low-carb eating, scoffs at the food industry recommendation that added sugars be consumed in moderation. Mr. Taubes has built a career touting the deleterious effects of processed food and added sugar. Just a few bites of a food like banana bread, he says, leave him wanting more.
减糖是一个简单的概念，但当超市提供的大多数食品中都含有添加糖时，减糖就会很困难。加里·陶布斯(Gary Taubes)是《反对食糖的理由》(The Case Against Sugar)一书的作者，同时也是低碳水饮食的倡导者，他对食品行业给出的适度食用添加糖的建议嗤之以鼻。陶布斯把宣传加工食品和添加糖的有害影响当成了自己的事业。他说，像香蕉面包之类的食物只吃上几口，就让他想要更多。
“If I start to allow sugars into my life, there is a slippery slope,” he says. “I think for many people, getting control of their sugar habit is the most important thing they can do for their health. If they can’t do it through abstinence, then mostly-abstinence is a good thing to achieve.”
“如果我开始允许糖进入我的生活，这将是一个危险的滑坡，”他说。“我认为对于许多人来说，控制自己的摄糖习惯是他们可以为健康所做的最重要的事情。如果他们无法实现完全杜绝，那么几乎杜绝也不失为一件好事。”
Take the 7-Day Sugar Challenge
参加7天减糖挑战
So how do you start reducing the added sugar in your diet? A good first step is to take our 7-day Sugar Challenge, which will deliver a new strategy each day for cutting added sugar. By the end of the week, you will have adopted several new healthful habits that can put you well on the way to cutting added sugar from your diet for good.
那么如何开始减少饮食中的添加糖呢？可以从参加我们的7天减糖挑战开始，它将每天提供削减添加糖的新策略。在一周结束的时候，你将已经开始采用一些新的健康习惯，从此走上永久减少添加糖的健康饮食之路。
To start, it’s a good idea to cut sugar out of breakfast, which tends to be the sweetest meal of the day. Cutting sugary beverages and eating whole foods rather than packaged foods makes a big dent in your sugar consumption. If you crave dessert, eat fruit instead (skip the grapes, which are mostly sugar), and it’s best to limit other types of dessert to once a week.
在开始的时候，建议从早餐中减糖，早餐通常是一天中最甜的一餐。少喝含糖饮料并食用全食而非包装食品会使你的糖摄入大幅下降。如果你很想吃甜点，请改吃水果（除了大部分是糖的葡萄），最好将其他类型的甜点限制为每周一次。
And when you read food labels, look for added sugar in disguise. “One should keep in mind that added sugars go by many different names like ‘brown sugar,’ ‘beet sugar,’ ‘agave nectar’ and ‘honey,’” says Dr. Frank Hu, chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “But don’t be fooled by these names, because they are all added sugars with similar metabolic effects and extra calories.”
当你阅读食品上的营养标签时，注意那些伪装成其他东西的添加糖。“应该记住，添加糖有很多不同的名称，例如‘红糖’、‘甜菜糖’、‘龙舌兰花蜜’和‘蜂蜜’，”哈佛公共卫生学院营养系主任胡丙长(Frank Hu)说。“但别被这些名字骗了，因为它们都是添加糖，具有相似的代谢作用和额外的卡路里。”
Cutting added sugar isn’t easy. During the first five days of no added sugar, you will probably experience cravings for sweets. And be warned that studies show that many of us are particularly vulnerable to craving sugary snacks in the evening.
减少添加糖摄入并不容易。在不摄入添加糖的前五天里，你可能会渴望吃甜食。而且要注意的是，研究表明，我们中的许多人特别容易在晚上渴望含糖的零食。
But stick with it, and soon the cravings will fade. You’ll start to feel more energetic, more focused and less irritable. You might even lose weight.
但是坚持下去，很快渴望就会消退。你会开始感到精力充沛，更加专注，更少烦躁。甚至可能会减重。
While our challenge lasts for seven days, the goal is to change your diet and stick with your new habits for a lifetime of healthful eating. After just 10 days of cutting added sugar, one important study of overweight children has shown improvements in numerous metabolic markers, including blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.
我们的挑战是7天，但我们的目标是改变你的饮食并坚持新习惯，以实现一生健康的饮食。一项对超重儿童的重要研究表明，在减少添加糖仅10天后，许多代谢指标——包括血压，胆固醇和血糖——均得到改善。
Note that cutting added sugar doesn’t mean you’ll be eliminating sweet foods from your life entirely. If you adopt a standard daily diet of whole foods with no added sugar, you will still be ingesting about 10 percent of your calories from natural sugars. And once you’ve got added sugar under control, the occasional treat of chocolate or dessert won’t derail you. Dr. Lustig recommends three weeks of no added sugar to get your brain’s dopamine system back to normal.
请注意，减少添加糖并不意味着你要完全摆脱甜食。如果你采用的日常标准饮食是无添加糖的全食，那么你仍然会从天然糖中摄取大约10％的卡路里。一旦你控制了添加糖的量，偶尔的巧克力或甜品就不会使你前功尽弃。勒斯蒂格建议连续三个星期不摄入添加糖，以使大脑的多巴胺系统恢复正常。
“Then you can introduce something back in,” Dr. Lustig says. “But it’s got to be under your control, not the food industry’s control.”
“然后你可以重新引入一些食物，”勒斯蒂格。“但这必须在你的控制之下，而不是在食品行业的控制之下。”