If you’ve vaguely but assuredly “known” that the cause of the obesity epidemic in the United States is fats, you’re not alone.
如果你隐约但确定地“知道”，美国肥胖流行的原因是脂肪，那么，很多人跟你的想法一样。
You are, however, wrong.
但是，你错了。
The sugar industry has conducted a decades-long blitz to convince consumers that fats — not sugars — are the driving force behind America’s weight problem, The Times’s Op-Ed columnist David Leonhardt writes in our guide to quitting sugar.
But simple carbohydrates, particularly sugar, are the real culprits in the modern diet, and are the driving forces “behind the diabetes and obesity epidemics,” Mr. Leonhardt writes.
Cutting out sugar is easier than it sounds, and it starts with evaluating some of our most basic habits. For even more guidance, read our whole guide here, but here are four easy ways to cut down today.
This one is a no-brainer. Sweetened beverages account for about 47 percent of added sugar in the American diet, and they are essentially nutrient-free calorie-delivery vehicles. A 16-ounce bottle of Coke contains 52 grams of sugar, more than your entire daily limit.
If you drink soda for the caffeine, switch to tea or coffee. If it’s the carbonation or the convenience of having a drink in a can handy, try switching to a seltzer like La Croix (my personal beverage of choice — try the coconut flavor!).
Sugar is stealthily sneaked into many breakfast foods that are marketed as “healthy” or “natural.” Flavored yogurts, for example, are loaded with sugar, and fruit juices are an easy way to drink tons of sugar without realizing.
For your morning meal, try to eat more grain-based foods with low or little sugar, like Cheerios, plain oatmeal, bread and homemade granola, Mr. Leonhardt suggests. And if you want to skip grains altogether, great options include scrambled or fried eggs, whole fruits, plain yogurt and nuts.
For even more breakfast recipes, check out these breakfast recipes from whole30, a more radical diet that forces out all sugar, in addition to other items. (A personal favorite crash diet of yours truly.)
As with breakfast foods, food producers sneak more sugar into sauces and condiments than you’d guess — for example, two of the four biggest ingredients in Heinz Ketchup are sweeteners, Mr. Leonhardt writes.
Read the labels on sauces and see how high sugar is listed, and watch out for sugar by another name, like high fructose corn syrup.
看一下酱料上的标签，看看糖含量有多高，注意其他名称的糖，比如高果糖玉米糖浆。
Some sauces that don’t rely on sugar for flavor are Maille dijon mustard, Gulden’s spicy brown, French’s Yellow Mustard, Prego’s Marinara, and Newman’s Own Classic Oil and Vinegar salad dressing.
Mr. Leonhardt’s own reckoning with sugar came when he cut sugar out of his diet for an entire month, which he wrote about here. I had a similar experience years ago when I tried Whole30 for the first time (and wrote about it here), and it is truly shocking how much sugar we eat without even realizing it.
If a full month sounds like too big an undertaking, try this: The next time you’re making a big shopping trip at the grocery store, stop to read the ingredients label of every single thing you buy. Watch out for keywords that are used to disguise sugar — like dextrose, fructose, saccharose, agave nectar and evaporated cane juice — and take stock of how much sugar you’ve been eating without even realizing it.
