Sugar

[ferret]

I've been trying to give up sugar with varying degrees of success, I use honey on my porridge I can eat Bran flakes or Shredded wheat without sugar, I've just discoverer I can drink Earl Grey tea without sugar as well, but how can you avoid sugar in all the other food stuff,
As we know it's in everything even baked beans and the bread you have with them, so how do you avoid it.   

[mark]

Read the labels very carefully, and plan on paying a bit more for food. Around here the issue is high fructose corn syrup, which is even worse for you than refined sugar. Is that stuff as ubiquitous in other countries as it is in the US?

[Chris S]

Read the labels very carefully, and plan on paying a bit more for food. Around here the issue is high fructose corn syrup, which is even worse for you than refined sugar. Is that stuff as ubiquitous in other countries as it is in the US?

Some, yes - but not most of Europe, thankfully.

Everything you want to know about sugar, and especially HFCS:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/jj69eDFu-_A&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/jj69eDFu-_A&rel=1</a>

Someone else mentioned John Yudkin's book "Pure White and Deadly" here recently - I've just downloaded it for reading on my iPad. Clearly, he was way ahead of his time. I just realised - when he wrote it, I was still taking three sugars in my tea!

[Biggsy]

It's easy to avoid eating more than small amounts of sugar* when you read the labels.  You don't need to give it up completely unless you're diabetic, do you?  (I think even then it's ok to have a certain amount).

* Except if you're addicted to it, like me.  I ate a whole Regular cup of Candy King jelly babies on Wednesday.

[hubner]

One obvious way is to cook everything yourself from raw ingredients. But of course that's less convenient than using processed and prepared foods.

I'd suspect plain Bran flakes or Shredded wheat will have added sugar.

edit:
Kellog's Bran Flakes
Wholewheat, Wheatbran (21%), Sugar, Barley Malt Flavouring, Salt, Honey. Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B1(Thiamin), Folic Acid, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12.

Sugar is the third ingredient, more than salt. And that's a non-sugary food.

[Biggsy]

Shredded Wheat famously has nothing added.  It's 100% wheat.  Bran flakes have loads of sugar.

[Ian H]

Breakfast cereals are evil. Many kinds of muesli contain sugar. Dorset Cereals and the Co-op do decent muesli.

As for

...I use honey on my porridge...   

I use salt. Tastes far better.

[Wobbly John]

Many kinds of muesli contain sugar.

I used to make museli for several different brands - most have about 10% sugar added. 

The ones that don't tend to contain much more fruit & nuts - natural sugars. 

I also worked in the sugar industry for 6 years. 

[hubner]

Amazingly, 100g of Bran Flakes has 20g of sugar and 1g of salt.

http://www.kelloggs.co.uk/content/NorthAmerica/kellogggb/en_GB/products/details/bran-flakes.nutrition.european.html
Look how they misleadingly make it appear Bran Flakes has 7% sugar.

[hellymedic]

Kellogg's Bran Flakes contain 6g sugar per 30g serving: 20 ****ing percent!
They also contain significant salt.

[ferret]

yep I can remember Mr Botham going on about shredded wheat but the OH picked up a box of bitesize shredded wheat today complete with 0.7g of sugar per 100g, but the only ingredient listed is 100% wheat,

I'm trying to cut back on the amount of salt intake as well



 

[ferret]

I just remembered, these birds that are being washed up on the south coast covered in gunk, it's been discovered that a mix of margarine and something else is breaking the gunk down, makes you wonder what it does to our insides, a bit OT but it's all stuff we eat.

[Biggsy]

Breakfast cereals are evil. Many kinds of muesli contain sugar. Dorset Cereals and the Co-op do decent muesli.

As for

...I use honey on my porridge...   

I use salt. Tastes far better.

Porridge with honey AND salt tastes even better.  Porridge with honey AND salt AND boiled egg tastes better still.  (I discovered this as a three year-old).

[crowriver]

Porridge with salt. Cook it with water, not milk. Add a splash of (semi-skimmed) milk if you want once it's in the bowl.
Can't beat it on a winter morning, fills you up too so no need for another snack until lunch.

Eat fresh fruit instead of sweet snacks, sweeties, chocolate etc.

[hellymedic]

Porridge with salt. Cook it with water, not milk. Add a splash of (semi-skimmed) milk if you want once it's in the bowl.
Can't beat it on a winter morning, fills you up too so no need for another snack until lunch.

Eat fresh fruit instead of sweet snacks, sweeties, chocolate etc.

My mother cooked porridge for us with full-cream milk as kids.
She served it with a knob of butter and sprinkling of sugar.

That was fine for us. Mum never touched it. She had been deterred from porridge for life by having it every day as a child. She still won't touch porridge!

[Biggsy]

More persuasive than thinking about the numbers is to actually weigh out the equivalent amount of sugar in the food and look at it.  Start with a typical pot of fruit yoghurt.

[hellymedic]

More persuasive than thinking about the numbers is to actually weigh out the equivalent amount of sugar in the food and look at it.  Start with a typical pot of fruit yoghurt.

Follow this with a glass of fizzypop...

[Glover Fan]

I always have porridge with a teaspoon of sugar sprinkled on top. Made with Semi-Skimmed milk.

Keeps me hunger free til lunch time, which remarkably is one of the only breakfast meals I have ever eaten that actually does that.

Any breakfast is better than nothing at all! Most important meal of the day!!!

[ferret]

obviously I have very limited taste when it comes to porridge, I just do mine with skimmed milk and a dollop of honey or dried fruit
I suppose the thing to do is not add sugar to your breakfast or tea/coffee and such like as there is already too much added to certain products, I think it must be nearly impossible to avoid sugar or sweeteners without getting slightly paranoid about it. The annoying thing about is we don't actually need sugar in our diet.

[Flynn]

Shredded Wheat famously has nothing added.  It's 100% wheat.  Bran flakes have loads of sugar.

Wheat isn't so good for you either: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-10-26/features/sc-food-1021-wheat-belly-book-20111026_1_wheat-products-gluten-sensitivity-blood-sugar

[Flynn]

I've been trying to give up sugar with varying degrees of success, I use honey on my porridge I can eat Bran flakes or Shredded wheat without sugar, I've just discoverer I can drink Earl Grey tea without sugar as well, but how can you avoid sugar in all the other food stuff,
As we know it's in everything even baked beans and the bread you have with them, so how do you avoid it.   

I make porridge every day all I add for taste is a dessert spoon of sultanas or sometimes one third of a banana, diced and stirred into the hot porridge.

[Flynn]

but how can you avoid sugar in all the other food stuff,
As we know it's in everything even baked beans and the bread you have with them, so how do you avoid it.   

Well, I'm allergic to flavour enhancers, so I have to cook just about everything I eat from scratch..

Sugar is a spice, food companies use it to add flavour to sub-par products imo..

It is also used in 'low fat'  products. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/20/calorie-and-sugar-warning_n_1899366.html

[hellymedic]

but how can you avoid sugar in all the other food stuff,
As we know it's in everything even baked beans and the bread you have with them, so how do you avoid it.   

Well, I'm allergic to flavour enhancers, so I have to cook just about everything I eat from scratch..

Sugar is a spice, food companies use it to add flavour to sub-par products imo..

It is also used in 'low fat'  products. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/20/calorie-and-sugar-warning_n_1899366.html

Indeed. If something is marketed as 'low fat', it's often high sugar.

Looking at my fridge, aside from cheese and sauces/condiments/preserves, there's little processed food.

[ferret]

I had a can of spicy tomato & rice soup for lunch today 10g of fat!! sugar, I can see I'm going to have to get my chefs head on & the food processor out
my leek & potato soup usually gets the thumbs up

[simonp]

Breakfast cereals are evil. Many kinds of muesli contain sugar. Dorset Cereals and the Co-op do decent muesli.

As for

...I use honey on my porridge...   

I use salt. Tastes far better.

Alpen contains added sugar IIRC. It tastes excessively sweet to me, but I never had a sweet tooth as a child. I usually buy Jordan’s, which IIRC actually contains more sugars than Alpen, but in a slower to digest form (in raisins etc).