This morning I Stumbled Upon a New York Times article titled Is Sugar Toxic? The article is about the potential effects on the body of excessive consumption of sugar in its various forms. While the article itself is interesting, that is not why I’m mentioning it. The article contains a couple of nice images that illustrate how much high fructose corn syrup the average person consumes in a lifetime and how much sugar the average person consumes in a lifetime.

The images associated with Is Sugar Toxic? reminded me of a great site called Sugar Stacks that I discovered a couple of years ago. Sugar Stacks is a good website for understanding how much sugar is in the food and beverages that we consume. Sugar Stacks lists popular food and beverage items in ten categories. Every item is pictured with a stack of sugar cubes. Each sugar cube represents four grams of sugar. This is a great way to see just how much sugar you really consume in your favorite snack or beverage.

Image credit: Sugarstacks.com

Since the last time I visited Sugar Stacks they’ve expanded a bit with a new section called Carrot Stacks. Carrot Stacks illustrates how many carrots you would have to each to equal the sugar content of popular beverages and snack foods.

Image credit: Sugarstacks.com

Applications for Education
Sugar Stacks provides good effective visuals that health teachers could use to show students just how much sugar they consume. Teachers could also the concept of Sugar Stacks and Carrot Stacks to have students create their own visuals.