Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => Other Health Discussion => Topic started by: CLKD on March 21, 2015, 08:25:06 PM
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Did anyone see the programme a few nights ago about how much sugar we eat daily? Fiona Phillips was going through food stuffs to see what might be in [mainly] processed foods.
I have a round of toast with butter, black T with 2 sugars for breakfast
mid-morning I have another BTw2Sugars and a chocolate eclair
lunch: can be cheese/crackers; hot pasta with fresh veg.; soup with toast; banana on toast or banana with cream poured over …..
mid-afternoon - BTw2Ss and a bun
evening meal usually made from scratch …….. so curry with rice; spagg boll.; fish/chips with vinegar and salt; chopped mixed veg. in hot pasta with tomato puree ……..
2-day I had half a slice of grapefruit covered in white sugar …….. Yummy ;)
We are going to check our ingredients for hidden sugars during the next few weeks to see what we eat without physically adding it. DH has black tea or coffee with no sugar. He eats a lot of fresh fruits which is something my diet lacks.
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Yes it's amazing what prepacked/prepared foods have sugar in them ,soups,tomato ketchup ,beans, things you wouldn't expect !
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Baked beans are supposedly good for us ::) - however, like cauliflower, they makes me bloated with rather rude results ;D
I don't eat flakes except in emergencies. I do eat chocolate in various forms. Sometimes I open a tin of riced pudding. We eat a fair about of cheese but wasn't aware that sugar is added :-\
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Did you see day break in january, this was all about how much sugar is in different items, it was amazing how much there is, Have you seen the new change for life campaign, they have stuff you can order that tells you what sugar is in what item I believe......
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Would save having to squint at the packaging in the stores ::) . I plan to buy what we usually do and read the ingredients once home ;) …………… when DH makes tomato soup he doesn't add sugar ::) ………
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I cut out sugar in tea years ago....now it tastes sweet to me.
I don't think I take in much sugar at all as I dont eat anything sweet except a chocolate in the evening. If I have a box of chocs I only have two.
I do eat fruit but that's natural sugars I guess. I have a savoury tooth and always have had.
My daughter is a whole other story. She is currently on a healthy diet kick. She makes a lot of fruit smoothies which are great, she eats salads and fruits and veggies....
She is now in head down, third year uni mode, what keeps her awake to three in the morning...energy drinks.....about ten spoonfuls of sugar per can. I hate her drinking these things. Some students rely on all sorts of stuff to keep them going so perhaps I shouldn't complain.
Honeybun
X
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If you cut down or cut out sugar as far as possible, including keeping down fruit sugars, you lose weight, feel better, teeth and gums problems improve, the threat of diabetes 2 recedes etc. You have to read labels, avoid processed food as much as possible and avoid snacking. Not easy, but I have done it, though the naughty stuff crept back in when I had gall stones as I couldn't keep the weight on. Back to my ideal weight now and I am having to be strict. I don't want to go back to where I was a year ago.
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We are trying to cut down on sugar. Asda's low sugar beans have the least sugar of all beans (even less than the weight watchers). We have weight watchers spaghetti. Cut out cakes (only have 1 or 2 a week). Just got to cut down on the chocolate now. ::)
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Hello ladies.
I think I read somewhere that processed food uses salt as a preservative and therefore requires sugar to disguise the salty taste and make the food palatable! We all know that fresh is best but easier said than done.
Take care ladies.
K.
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I'm confused by the conflicting information we've been given (from different sources) over the last few years about the different types of sugars. Some say that all sugars are as bad as each other because of what they do to our pancreas/insulin levels; others say that fruit sugar (fructose) is absorbed more slowly than eg sucrose, has less of a wallop effect on our insulin levels and is therefore better for us. Certainly I have a more noticeable effect (ratty and hyper) from cakes and biscuits (probably sucrose/glucose) than I do from fruit (fructose). Also, at least with fruit we're getting fibre and vitamins which we don't from sweets and biscuits, unfortunately. I suppose the long-standing advice to eat unprocessed (fruit) over processed (biccies) is the best.
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As I was insulin resistant and was advised not to have more than 2 pieces of fruit a day and only to eat with a meal, not as a snack.
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I have tried to cut out as much sugar as possible over recent years and it's amazing how the taste buds change - I now hate any sugar in tea and find anything too sweet really horrid. I can't eat any citrus fruits these days either - too acidic on my stomach and I'm worried about the effect they have on my teeth.
Having said this, I do think we should enjoy our food and not become too obsessive - life is short and as long as we endeavour to eat sensibly most of the time "a little of what we fancy does us good". I think it's comfort eating that is the real danger.
I do try to make my own cakes so I know that I've used healthy fat (not saturated) and minimal sugar. I also bought a good bread maker 18 months ago - the bread is so much better, there isn't any waste and I eat less. The bread recipes use very little sugar or salt.
Dg x
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Recorded the programme,haven't watched it yet.
I don't have sugar in my drinks only sweetener in my first cup of the day.( got to taste something sweet when I wake up :-\)
Sugar is meant to be bad for us, but, some say, so are sweeteners :-\
I don't eat so much sweet stuff as I did,prefer to have fruit and cereal bars as snacks.
There's probably loads in a cereal bar :-\
I was at my slimming class one week and this women kept going on about how much sugar there was in a banana and that she wasn't going to eat them anymore :-\
She kept on & on &....................until this chap, who was diabetic, said " it's a different type of sugar and no good for me when my levels are low".
Thankfully this shut her up :P
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Your tutor in the slimming class ain't doing too good a job then! 1st lesson should be about what is in our food ;)
We use energy bars from walking shops which have less sugar in the bar then others but of course, name escapes me ::) - that's the name of the bar not the walking shop ;D
Sweetners are a waste of time ??? :-X and with some ADs can be dangerous, Canderal is a no no with some. Bananas are an all-round GOOD food.
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CLKD!!!! You don't especially need to check your ingredients for hidden sugars in your diet yet - as this is likely to be minimal compared to the amount you are pouring directly into your drinks! No wonder you feel shaky etc and get low blood sugar! Looks like you are adding at least 6 teaspoons of sugar to your tea on top of what you are taking into your diet, adding to grapefruit etc If anything is likely to upset your blood sugar metabolism, and cause fluctuation in sugar levels this is! If you cut out all of this added sugar (and then also look for what hidden sugars there are in your diet) your body will thank you for it because you will stop getting spikes of sugar, insulin surges, and then crashes as the sugar runs out!!!! You are also eating a lot of refined carbs/sugars in the first part of the day which will only exacerbate the effect (spike of sugar then crash as you run out of energy....) :)
I agree as Ju Ju says if you have insulin resistance it's best initially to limit all sugar including fruit sugar, and to cut out fruit juice, until you've sorted out your insulin levels. If you don't then I'm sure it's OK to have plenty of fruit - the Slimming World diet allows unlimited fresh fruit of most types.
The only way to cut out any (most) added sugar is to completely avoid all processed foods including pasta sauces and soups. Once you've stopped adding any sugar for a while all these bought things - even supposedly delicious Covent Garden soups - taste horrible to me, because they've got too much sugar in and that's all you can taste. I usually make my own soup but used to buy I a few of the tasty cartons for when I'd run out - but I don't think I found a single one that didn't have sugar in it!
In my case - I eat almost no processed foods, very little sugar, low fat, hardly ever have cakes, biscuits, puddings or sweets (maybe once or twice a week I'll have something in that category) do 3 exercise classes a week and I'm still not losing any weight and struggle to maintain the same weight :(
Yes I agree bananas are good - I have one cut up in my porridge most mornings!
Hurdity x
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OOOHHH :-X I couldn't eat a grapefruit without sugar ;D ………
today I began with 1 chocolate croissant, blackT, 2 sugars
out into the garden, working
cuppa mid morning by the pond
half a bread roll with a slab of cold beef and mustard
rested by the pond before more gardening
mid-afternoon - can't remember :-\
curried chicken legs with home made chutney and curried potato wedges
cuppa
on here ::)
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I read, somewhere, that Bananas can trigger migraine so I have stopped eating them, chocolate and coffee. Its been a month and I haven't had a migraine so I shall start reintroducing one at a time to see if in fact they were the triggers. I have replaced them with grapes, mango (yum), kiwi and apples x
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CLKD, try pink grapefruit. They are sweeter so you need much less sugar added. :)
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I think people's taste buds are changing as they get used to a high sugar diet. I've never added sugar to tea or coffee and only occasionally have cake or biscuits if I am meeting friends for coffee. My sugar comes from fruit - raw cooking apples at the moment, so you can see I don't have a very sweet tooth :o
I can't bear processed food as it tastes really sugary, and I've noticed lots of recipes now tell you to add a spoonful of sugar to savoury meals, especially those containing beef. Yuk! I NEVER add sugar to a savoury recipe, and usually cut the sugar by half to a third in sweet recipes as otherwise it is too sweet for me. I also have huge trouble finding fruit juices I can drink as they are either too sweet naturally (e.g. apple) or would be ok on their own but have sugar added (mango, cherry etc). The only fruit juice I can drink now is pomegreat as everything else tastes too sweet.
I have a friend who used to eat lots of processed foods. She came for dinner and I made a fruit crumble which tasted fine to me. She asked for more sugar and added 3 heaped tablespoons to her portion before she could eat it. :-\ Interestingly, since she has had children, she has become very health-conscious and cooks from scratch. I've noticed that even her sweet treats are less sweet now, as her taste buds have got used to less sugar, and she looks much healthier too.
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We've recently had mice in our garage and they've been helping themselves to food I'd taken out of the campervan. Pasta, some dried fruit, dog biscuits. They've left marshmallows untouched - obviously recognising they have absolutely no nutritional value at all but are just chemicals.
I've cut sugar out a hell of a lot over the last year and apart from a sneaky Waitrose cheesecake on a weekend and breakfast Shreddies, we rarely eat anything processed at all. It's much more fun cooking from scratch and tastes far more wholesome - and our tastes have changed alongside it too. Even the kids have stopped putting sugar on Shreddies.
Nutrition is so key to our health and it's so sad to see levels of obesity rise in children, often due to a diet of fast food and ready meals.
GG x
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As noted in that programme where the family are going through the ages from the 1940s, it's been a eye opener!
I have dropped the toast for breakfast and now eat 'Lizis' granola with a small amount of added sugar, milk and cream mixed. Cuppa, bl x 2 sugars. I no longer need a bun mid-morning :o ...........
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As noted in that programme where the family are going through the ages from the 1940s, it's been a eye opener!
Which programme is that CLKD? It was reported in the news the other day that our life expectancies are now starting to fall back for the first time in decades - sedentary life styles and bad diets starting to have an impact.
GG x
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In the last 2-3 years we have altered our diets considerably. Due to my continual bloating I have stopped eating various items: including croissants, eclairs, less chocolate and food stuffs with fats/sugars.
In November we went away so I didn't have access to muesli and milk - within 24 hours I didn't have that afternoon bloating 8). So 4 breakfast since I've had 2 rounds of white bread with peanut butter, 1 black T with sugar which 2 days ago I swopped for agave syrup. It's going to take my taste buds a while to get used to that! but the annoying, continual irritating clearing of throat has lessened :o.
:bouncing: Trial and error continues. Now that the bloating is less and that 'cough' has gone, I'm feeling much better. It does mean that when we go for morning coffee I can't have cake etc., sticking to T ........ it's whether I can carry my syrup :-\ ::).
My bowels take a break every few days but I don't feel as heavy or continual 'the need to go' sensations.