Over the past year, the media have been bombarding us with supposed ‘facts’ about sugar, but a lot of the messages are conflicting, confusing and incorrect and Nutrition Tuition are going to tell you why and what to look for in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle and make better food decisions.
Sugar is not the only reason that is making us pile on the pounds. An excess consumption of calories from any food group can cause us to gain weight so the first piece of advice to remember is to consume all food in moderation.
Experts suggest a high consumption of sugar is affecting our health, particularly if we are inactive and overweight. They claim this puts us at risk of Heart Disease, Type 2 Diabetes and numerous other health problems.
It is important to note that foods containing natural sugars such as fruit, peas and sweetcorn aren’t harmful on our health as they are packed with vitamins, minerals and fibre.
The problem is that manufacturers are using food processing to add sugar into our foods. Sugar is present not only in food such as cakes, sweets and biscuits but other foods such as certain pasta sauces and condiments which can have a negative impact on your health and weight loss goals.
But how do you know what to look for?
Sugar can be listed in a variety of ways on food labels so watch out for alternative descriptions of what are ultimately all STILL sugar. Glucose, Sucrose, Lactose, Corn Starch, Maltose, Dextrose, Treacle, Molasses, corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate and honey are all used as alternatives to sugar and are just as harmful.
So, how do we know how much sugar is in our food?
All the information is found on the food label…look for a section on the label named ‘information source’ and the part which lists ‘sugars per 100g’ for food or ‘per 100mls’ for drinks. If the product is high in sugar it will be above 22.5g of sugar/100g or low sugar foods are less than 5g of sugar/100g. Drinks that are high in sugar contain more than 11.25g/100mls or drinks low in sugar contains less the 2.5g/100mls.
Nutrition Tuitions Tips and Tricks to reduce sugar in diet.
- Swap fruit juices, fizzy drinks and cordials to flavouring water naturally with lemon, mint or even fruit!
- Cook from scratch, the less processed and ready-made foods you buy the most sugar you consume!
- Many breakfast cereals are high in sugar. Swap to homemade porridge, plain wheat biscuits or plain shredded wholegrain pillows.
For more tips and advice please contact Nutrition Tuition for a 1:1 consultation.
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