Even when you read a food label, you can be fooled into consuming more sugar than you think you are unless you know what words to look for beyond the obvious one: sugar!
I'd like to challenge you to an exercise right in your own kitchen.
Look at the labels on food packages in your cupboards, pantry, freezer, and refrigerator. Every food label has its ingredients listed right below the nutritional values.
Your mission is to read the ingredients on each food to see if you find any of the words on this list (courtesy of health.msn.com):
Brown sugar
Cane juice and cane syrup.
Confectioners' sugar
Corn sweeteners and corn syrup
Dextrose
Fructose
Fruit juice concentrate
Glucose
Granulated white sugar
High fructose corn syrup
Honey
Invert sugar
Lactose
Maltose
Malt syrup
Molasses
Sucrose
Syrup
White sugar
Surprised? That's 19 different ways to say "sugar"!
If you are like me, you may be amazed that so many foods that we don't even think of as being "sweet" have more than one kind of sugar as an ingredient!
It can take a little time to learn which brands have the least amounts of hidden and added sugars, but it will pay off health-wise and weight-wise, to comparison shop for grocery items that are lowest in all kinds of added sweeteners.
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So true! I love Jorge Cruise's book "The Belly Fat Cure" b/c it includes such great recipes & a section on "carb swapping" which describes foods people may assume are healthy but are not (ie - McDonalds Fruit 'n yogurt parfait - this actually has 21 sugar grams). The book goes on to tell you how to "swap" for a homemade parfait recipe using sugar free preserves, so you can make a healthy one yourself! Also, "The Flat Belly Diet Cookbook" by the editors of Prevention, have so many great recipes,too. I bet people are really interested in cutting down their daily sugar intake, but just don't know how, so that's why I suggested these 2 books (b/c I didn't know how to either, till you coached me, of course) :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for mentioning yogurt, Kate! Many of them should be considered a dessert food! We'll have to do a whole post on yogurt alone!
ReplyDeleteGood book recommendations - for recipes and for finding hidden sugars!