Is anyone else going to jump on this bandwagon and try to give up sugar?


Are there any ready made food stuffs that we can still eat (other than those with artificial sweeteners in).



Does the average sandwich that I buy at lunchtime have sugar in it?

No. This whole sugar thing is ridiculous. By all means don't shovel the stuff down your gullet but if I have a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner using fresh ingredients then a biscuit or bit of cake will do no harm.

Everything in moderation

Plus no one wants to hang out with a health food nazi - hence why everyone hates those two absolute dull harridans - Gillian McKeith and Gwenyth Paltrow

The average sandwich probably won't have a lot of added sugar if any, but will have alot of SALT

To avoid sugar, cut out breakfast bars, most breakfast cereals, jams, some sauces/dips, and the obvious things like chocolate, ice cream, biscuits...

If you do your own cooking and make your own sandwiches you will naturally cut down on an inadvertent intake of sugar.

I have cut out ready meals completely. Fruit and porridge have enough sugar for me.

I think realistically that I will have to buy the occasional ready meal or take away and buy some sandwiches when I'm at work.


Can't make everything from scratch all the time, so will try to go for low sugar options I guess?

I gave it up 3 years ago and started losing weight after the first couple of weeks.

I have to, I must to give up on sugar because I have diabetes.

There's a program on Monday on Channel 4 called 'Addicted to Sugar?'. I'm going to give it a watch, as I do think our culture is heavy on the sugar intake. I've made some changes over the past couple of years and it's still a work in progress.

As much as I would like to see a reduction in sugar in processed foods, I would NOT like to see manufacturers pump it full of artificial sweeteners either. Just less sugar and be honest about the labeling of ingredients, stop trying to hide/change the names of sweeteners/additives to trick us into thinking something is 'healthy'. Yes, I know making things from scratch means we control the amount of sugar/fat/salt, but not everyone can make everything from scratch, it wouldn't kill the food industry to get rid of sugar in things that don't need it.

This is good advice - ready meals have 'hidden' sugar in them, unlike homemade - but the trouble is, many people just don't want to prepare their own dinners.

I think sugar-filled soft drinks are a major problem because they're empty calories, no nutritional value what-so-ever. One every now and then isn't a problem but I cringe at the amount some people drink every day, especially children.

Totally agree with this - I think this is really the one major contributor. You don't get filled up by them and because they're a drink you don't really notice you've had it.

A can of coke (330ml) is something like 35g of sugar (ish). There's about 5g in a McVities Chocolate digestive. People would happily say take 3 chocolate digestives and think they've had a nice treat and it's still under half the amount of sugar in the coke.

And that's just one can of coke - people drink a 500mlbottle everyday - there are probably people getitng through more. If you had litre of coke thats the same sugar as 21 McVities Chocolte Digestives and you would never do that

Biscuits and cake and chocolate people seem to realise are treats but people just consume fizzy drinks as if they were water

if you want to give up anything give up bread and potatoes.

Not give up, but I have cut down over the years. I used to drink at least one glass of Ribena a day. That was 28g, or four teaspoons full of sugar right there. I also gave up coffee, which saved me another 6 teaspoons a day. I still eat a lot of chocolate and similar, though; I have a very sweet tooth. I'm lucky in that I don't mind sugar substitutes.

I think the real issue is a bit deeper. Namely manufactured food that has the fat taken out, and then sugar added because food with neither fat nor sugar tastes horrible. We probably should put the fat back and have less sugar.

To be honest, I drink water, and love it. I also drink half a pint of milk a day. I can't drink fizzy drinks because they leave my mouth feeling dirty and are just too sweet

Agree with that. The problem is we've been told for so many years that fat is the bad guy and people genuinely think fat in our food is what makes us fat. We need more education and for our health officials to catch-up with what we now know about sugar and to reflect that in the advice they give. Recently, Change4Life started their 'smart swap' campaign, suggesting people replace regular soda with artificially sweetened soda. <facepalm> I suspect it has a lot to do with them being sponsored by Nestle, but I think the tide is changing, I've seen a few news items regarding sugar consumption, so more people are becoming aware of the downside of too much sugar.

The "low fat" branding really annoys me. It just means less fat, but they've added lots of sugar usually. Theres also alot of sugar in yogurts.

Nuts are one of the highest fat foods there is, since I've started eating them, my body fat % has gone down and the benefits of them are extremely good for you

Me too, although I still have the odd (small) chocolate bar or slice of cake as a treat.

You need sugar to live. Don't they teach this in biology anymore?

I don't have this problem. I make my own fizzy drinks.

They don't teach it in biology because it's wrong...

You need GLUCOSE to live. The body can create that from fat through gluconogenesis. There is no need whatsoever to consume any sugar.


Yes. Bread is carbs and carbs is sugar.

It probably wouldn't kill them but it would affect profits, which is why I doubt anything will actually be done.

This meme sums up this forum and its attitude to food and health.

http://s.quickmeme.com/img/93/93bc41...ac2b987777.jpg

Cut back on sugar and carbs in general, but trying to give it up completely sounds a bit extreme to me.

Brut Champagne is dry

For reference purposes, this is what the NHS recommends that we should eat daily:

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/...ell-plate.aspx

The NHS is wrong.