What are added sugars?
Added sugars are literally added to foods. Some you might add yourself, like sugar in your coffee. Others might be added without your knowledge, like high-fructose corn syrup in ketchup. Sweets themselves — chocolate, ice cream, biscuits, ladoos, halwa — are all about added sugar!
In processed foods, sugar is added to make them appealing — sugar goes into low fat cheese to keep it from being bland, in bread to make it toast golden brown, and in fruit juice to even out the flavour among batches. And that’s just at your breakfast table.
Added sugar has many different names and we have a list of them for you later this month to help you make sense of labels in your grocery store.
Not all sugars are added sugars.
“Free sugar” is a term used by nutrition guidelines worldwide to include sugars themselves like honey, agave, jaggery, maple syrup, cane sugar, and palm sugar. When we talk about added sugars this month, we include these free sugars.
Natural sugars are also found in fruits and vegetables, in grains, and even in meats. Natural sugars are tempered by fiber and nutrients to make them a healthier form of energy by lowering their glycemic index.
You can cut the produce and grain sources of sugar, too, and many Kilter readers do, but limiting fruits and vegetables also limits vitamins and fiber. That creates a whole new set of complications.
This month, we’re targeting only added sugar and free sugar. It’s a moderate place to begin a longer journey. Let’s try to eliminate the easy things: sugars you can identify on labels; desserts; sweet breakfast foods; and all the “low hanging fruit” as they say, which in our case, isn’t fruit at all but mostly processed foods and table sugar.
Can we give up ice cream? Chocolate? Switch to unsweetened tea? Eat fewer processed foods? I think we can. Let’s support one another on the #kilter channel on Friends of HasGeek Slack or on our Kilter WhatsApp group.
