Hello, so today we’re going to talk about sugar.
The American heart association says that the max amount of sugar that a man should consume
is 37 and a half grams and the maximum amount that a woman should consume is 25 grams.
Now a lot of people don’t even know what that means.
I have tracked my food before and I know that I usually do or go a little bit over that,
just because sometimes even one piece of fruit can have 20 grams of sugar.
So we don’t want to get too caught up in the numbers but it is good to be aware of
how much sugar we are consuming, especially because excess sugar in our diet will be converted
into fat.
Nobody wants that.
So some foods that are secretly high in sugar are:
Number one, canned fruit.
So for instance those little cute pineapple cups.
Most of those are soaked in syrup which is just a bunch of sugar.
Those little cups can have anywhere from 17 to 20 grams of sugar and remember if I am
a woman and I am only supposed to consume 25 grams, that one cup is pretty much my sugar
for the day.
Breakfast or cereal bars.
This is a great place that companies hide a bunch of sugar.
They try to tell you that they are healthy but 15 grams of sugar in a bar, maybe not
the best choice.
A classic breakfast dish, cereal and milk, even cereals that are marketed as healthy,
a lot of people think for instance raisin bran is healthy, it’s just raisins and bran,
right?
But I know personally, because Christian is currently obsessed with eating it, there is
like 45 to 50 grams if you get raisin bread crunch it’s even more grams of sugar in
one bowl and who only eats like three quarters cup of cereal or whatever it is.
Then you add in the milk, if you are using skimmed milk, it may be fat free but they
are still like 13 grams of sugar in it and a lot of people might say, well isn’t fruit
and milk okay because it’s natural?
Yes it is okay and those are definitely the sugars we want to consume more than processed
foods but we still have to be aware how much overall sugar we’re consuming.
When you are looking for a cereal, try to find one that has less than six grams of sugar
if you can, it’s very hard to do.
Even the healthy ones like Special K have like 10 to 15 grams of sugar.
Same goes for oat meal and granola.
The instant oat meal always has like 15 grams of sugar, make your own oat meal, buy the
quick oats, it is so easy.
And granola always has a lot of sugar and fat so make sure you read the label to find
one that doesn’t have so much.
If you didn’t see my granola muffins recipe, you’ve got to check it out because I share
my favourite brand of low sugar granola.
Yoghurt.
Yoghurt is deceiving because everybody tells you it’s healthy, it’s good for digestion,
blah blah blah.
And it is healthy but if you’re buying a flavoured variety, they have a lot of sugar.
So like yoplait fat free strawberry or something like that.
A lot of those have 30 to 35 grams of sugar, I am supposed to consume 25 grams a day, that’s
over my sugar allotment for the day in one small cup of yoghurt.
And then if I want to eat a banana with that, sugars gone.
So instead go for a Greek yoghurt which has much less sugar.
Also keep in mind fat free products like yoghurt, a lot of times they take the fat out but they
have to add sugar in, so if it’s fat free it probably has more sugar in it.
Pasta sauce.
If you haven’t seen my very, very old episode on pasta sauce where I make my own.
I also talk to you about how much sugar is in a lot of the store bought versions, it
can be up to 15 grams in a serving which is just absurd there doesn’t need to be sugar
in pasta sauce.
Definitely a good idea to read your labels.
Frozen dinners.
This is a surprising one because a lot of people just think they have a lot of sodium
but they also can have a lot of sugar, so like a lean cuisine, those can have up to
10 grams of sugar and why?
It’s a dinner, it doesn’t even need to have sugar in it.
And finally, white bread.
Now this is actually a trick one because there is not necessarily a lot of sugar in white
bread but because it is a refined grain, it is absorbed and digested a lot like sugar.
So we want to minimise those refined grains in our diet.
So those are some of the foods that are secretly high in sugar, there are of course many, many
more and feel free to leave them in the comments below.
I will also put these examples in a PDF that you can download, in the description box below
as always this month.
There is more coming at you every single day this month, let’s Kickstart to a healthier
you and remember it’s all a matter of Mind Over Munch.