Foods with added sugar are everywhere – even in some surprising places. So how easy is it to go without sugar and what difference can it make to your health?
While I typically eat a healthy diet with plenty of home-cooking, I also have a sweet tooth and tend to consume a chocolate treat or two every day.
That’s not very surprising – overconsumption of sugar is extremely common in our modern diets. It’s bad for our teeth, harmful to our health and there is even some evidence to suggest eating too much sugar might lead to long-term cognitive deficits.
As my role involves reporting on health and wellbeing, I’ve increasingly started to worry about eating so many treats, which alongside refined sugar, often contain numerous additives. In fact, one of my regular treats contains more than half my daily recommended amount of sugar.
Dietary guidelines in the US recommend consuming fewer than 12 teaspoons of added sugar from food and beverages (around 50g) while in the UK, the NHS recommends people eat less than seven teaspoons (30g) of sugars per day. In reality US adults eat more than 16-17 teaspoons (65-70g) a day, according to the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. To put that in context, 4g is about one level teaspoon of sugar.
Giving up all that sugar isn’t easy either. But I decided to see if it was indeed possible to break out of my daily sugar habit.
I set myself the challenge of not eating any foods containing added refined sugar for six weeks. I also avoided honey and fruit juice but I continued to eat natural sugars found in whole fruit, as well as complex carbohydrates – which when eaten, our body breaks down into the sugar glucose which provides our body and brain with its main source of energy.
From the outset, I noticed some surprising changes to my energy levels and how I felt. The post-lunch slump went away but I did often find myself listlessly looking in my fridge trying in vain to find something interesting (sweet) to munch on, feeling as though I was missing out.
Sugar is everywhere
First, it’s worth reflecting on just how much sugar is added to our food. I found it surprisingly hard to avoid. Browsing my local supermarket shelves, I noticed it in food I didn’t expect, including a deli sourdough sandwich, which contained 5.7g of sugar and a bolognese ready meal (9g). Many breakfast cereals include added sugars and a slice of commonly bought supermarket bread had about 1.2g of sugar per slice.
Sugar is also abundant in many ultra-processed foods – which have known adverse health outcomes and tend to contain fewer nutrients than whole foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains
The scope news
