I had an interesting conversation with my daughters (aged 13 and 11) at the dinner table. We’re in the habit of diluting our juices with water to make them more thirst-quenching and less sugary. I had purchased a different juice flavor recently and we diluted it as usual; it didn’t taste very good. It was a bit on the sour side and it tasted over-diluted. We were trying to figure out “why?”. So I suggested that it probably had less sugar than our regular flavor of juice. I was wrong; it actually had more! I informed the girls that one cup of juice had 27 grams of sugar.

Our daughter from overseas, who is just learning English this year asked, “What is a gram?” I told her it was a measurement. And then to give her a picture to hang this information on, I told her that one spoon of sugar had 4 grams. Both of my girls, who definitely enjoy sugar, were very surprised: eyebrows raised, eyes widened in unbelief. These girls, who put a MAXIMUM of 2-3 teaspoons of sugar in their tea, were amazed! They did their mental math and incredulously exclaimed, “That means there are 7 teaspoons of sugar in one cup!” It was an “Aha!” moment.