According to the American Heart Association, the average North American consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day. That is equivalent to 355 calories a day or an extra 22 to 28 pounds a year to the waistline!

While some of this sugar comes from sources that we are aware of, and perhaps even consciously add to our food (such as in our morning cup of joe), a majority of these sugars are actually hiding in our foods. They're hiding and waiting for us to innocently pick them up in the grocery store and put them in our buggy.

This often-unnecessary ingredient has been proven to alter our taste buds so we are unable to respond to the normal flavour of foods anymore. This dulling of our taste buds then has us craving more sugar. It's a nasty little cycle, but it can broken with a few simple steps.

The first step is to avoid being ambushed by sugar in your grocer's aisle and start reading your food labels, in particular the grams of sugar per serving. For every three grams of sugar listed, you are ingesting one teaspoon of sugar.

The second step is to completely eliminate high-fructose corn syrup from any food product that you purchase. It can really mess up your metabolism and has been linked to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, osteoporosis and cancer.

Buyers beware: manufacturers also label this sugar as fructose-glucose, inulin, iso-glucose, dahlia syrup, tapioca syrup, glucose syrup, corn syrup, crystalline fructose, agave syrup and even fruit fructose.

The third and final step is to replace sugar with other sources that aren't as hard on the body. One word of advice: While these sources are cleaner than sugar, they can still lead to additional pounds if not closely monitored.

Sugar Alternatives:

Sucanat - The name stands for Sugar Cane Natural and it is a natural sweetener made from crushing the sugar cane, extracting the juice and drying it. It has a natural molasses flavour and can be substituted for sugar in any recipe. Sucanat is an excellent source of calcium, iron, vitamin B6, potassium and chromium.

Agave or Agave Nectar - Agave syrup or nectar is a sweetener produced from the native agave plant of Mexico. The core of the plant contains a juice that is squeezed out, filtered and heated resulting in a syrup-like product. It is a perfect alternative to white, refined sugar and can be substituted as follows: one-third cup of agave for every one cup of white sugar.

Organic Maple Syrup - Maple syrup contains the trace mineral manganese, important for energy production, and it is also a good source of zinc. I enjoy organic maple syrup on my oatmeal and in my smoothies to sweeten them a bit. If you are going to replace granulated sugar with organic maple syrup, replace each cup of sugar with 3/4 to 11/2 cups of syrup, depending on how sweet you would like the recipe.

Blackstrap Molasses - Blackstrap molasses is the dark liquid byproduct of the process of refining sugar cane into table sugar. It contains iron, which is great for energy, and is also an excellent source of copper, manganese, potassium and magnesium. It is great in baked beans and gives cookies and cakes a distinctive flavour.

I also recommend purchasing only unsulphured organic blackstrap molasses.

PJ Wren is a local personal trainer and writer in the Delta area is slowly trying to wean her loving husband off white sugar.