第1514期:Sweet tooth hazards

Sweet or savoury? What kind of tastes do you like? If like me, you have a sweet tooth, you probably can't resist eating cakes, biscuits or chocolate and will sweeten your tea or coffee with spoonfuls of sugar – delicious! But the taste makes it very easy to ignore the warnings that too much of the white stuff is bad for our health.

甜的还是咸的？你喜欢什么样的口味？如果像我一样，你爱吃甜食，你可能无法抗拒吃蛋糕、饼干或巧克力，并且会用一勺糖来增加你的茶或咖啡的甜味——美味！但是味道让人很容易忽视过多的白色物质对我们的健康有害的警告。

Consuming sugar is an addiction – the more we eat, the more we want. Today's processed food, like ready meals, is laced with the stuff and many fizzy drinks contain seven teaspoons of sugar in just one can. In the UK, statistics show that sugar consumption is at its highest level in history and the government is trying to get the food industry to cut the amount of sugar in popular products like chocolate bars by 20% by 2020.

吃糖是一种瘾——我们吃的越多，我们想要的就越多。今天的加工食品，如即食食品，都含有这种物质，许多碳酸饮料在一罐中就含有七茶匙糖。在英国，统计数据显示，糖的消费量处于历史最高水平，政府正试图让食品行业到 2020 年将巧克力棒等流行产品中的糖含量减少 20%。

Of course, sugary food tastes nice, it can help lift our mood, and the glucose in it can give us an energy boost. But there are dangers too: a high-sugar diet is linked to obesity, and being overweight can increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes. With these warning signs, I have considered changing my diet by replacing sugary snacks with fruit and savoury biscuits – but that's boring, I need my sugar fix!

当然，含糖的食物味道很好，它可以帮助提升我们的情绪，其中的葡萄糖可以让我们精力充沛。但也有危险：高糖饮食与肥胖有关，超重会增加患 2 型糖尿病的风险。有了这些警告信号，我考虑用水果和咸味饼干代替含糖零食来改变我的饮食习惯——但这很无聊，我需要解决我的糖分问题！

I'm not alone. BBC journalist Radhika Shanghani, has gone one step further. Encouraged by some celebrities and nutritionists promoting a 'zero tolerance' approach to sugar, she gave it up altogether, thinking it would make her healthier. Initially she says, "My first fortnight involves mood swings worse than puberty. I have agonising headaches and feel permanently hungover." These symptoms disappeared but she still found food shopping hard as she was stressing about buying the right things.

我不孤独。BBC 记者 Radhika Shanghani 更进一步。在一些名人和营养学家提倡对糖采取“零容忍”方法的鼓励下，她完全放弃了，认为这会让她更健康。最初，她说：“我的第一个两周的情绪波动比青春期还严重。我有痛苦的头痛，感觉永远宿醉。”这些症状消失了，但她仍然觉得买食物很困难，因为她强调要买合适的东西。

Her experiment wasn't a success. She eventually sought advice from Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University who said: “Lots of people enjoy sugar and gain pleasure from it, so one has to find a balance between enjoyment and eating the right amount."

她的实验没有成功。她最终向牛津大学饮食与人口健康教授 Susan Jebb 寻求建议，他说：“很多人喜欢吃糖并从中获得乐趣，所以人们必须在享受和吃适量之间找到平衡。”

There are health benefits of cutting down sugar such as improving dental care and reducing weight gain, but there's no need to be obsessive about it. Eating some sugar as part of a balanced diet is fine and exercising will help burn it off. So rather than dealing with your sugar cravings by cutting it out of your diet altogether, why not work on your willpower and learn to say 'no' to a second serving of chocolate fudge cheesecake.

减少糖分对健康有好处，例如改善牙齿护理和减少体重增加，但没有必要对此过于执着。吃一些糖作为均衡饮食的一部分是好的，运动将有助于燃烧掉它。因此，与其完全从饮食中减少对糖的渴望，不如锻炼意志力，学会对第二份巧克力软糖芝士蛋糕说“不”。

词汇表

savoury 咸的
sweet tooth 喜好甜食
addiction 上瘾
processed food 加工食品
lace（偷偷地）给（食物或饮品）掺
glucose 葡萄糖
obesity 肥胖（症）
overweight 肥胖的，超重的
Type 2 diabetes 二型糖尿病
fix 用量（幽默的说法）
nutritionist 营养学家
zero tolerance 零容忍政策
mood swings 情绪波动
puberty 青春期
hungover 宿醉的
symptom 症状
a balance 平衡
dental care 牙科护理
weight gain 体重增加
obsessive 过分的
craving 难以抑制的渴求
willpower 意志力