Guidelines for a daily sugar allowance.

Unfortunately, food manufacturers include a Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) for ‘total sugars’ in the ‘nutrition’ section of labels on food and drinks – this amount includes the kind of sugar that is ‘added’ to cakes, chocolate, soft drinks etc., and also the sugars that are found naturally in fruit, vegetables, and other natural foods. Most people don’t consume too much natural sugar, but many people do eat too much ‘added’ sugar, which causes weight gain, and increases the risk of serious medical problems. The GDA given on labels for ‘total sugars’ for women is 90 grams, and 120 grams for men, but everybody should be aiming to consume less than 50 grams of ‘added sugar’ per day – ideally, we shouldn’t consume any ‘added’ sugar at all, but if you have a 'sweet tooth' then trying not to eat anything at all with 'added' sugar is likely to be too stressful.

So the problem is, how can you know the amount of ‘added’ sugar that’s in a food or drink product, if the label only gives the amount of ‘total sugars’? If the only ingredient is a natural food, such as fruits, vegetables, wheat or milk, then all the amount of ‘total sugars’ stated in the nutrition section of the label will be natural. If any kind of sugar, any kind of syrup, hydrolysed starch, dextrose, maltose, fructose, or glucose is on the list of ingredients, then the product contains one or more ‘added’ sugars. Hydrolysed starch, dextrose, and maltose, are sugars which are specially produced for food manufacturers. Although fructose is a sugar that is naturally found in fruit, it can also be extracted from fruit, and quite often corn, and then used by food manufacturers to add to cakes etc., in ‘unnaturally’ large quantities. Honey is a natural product but it should be regarded as an ‘added’ sugar, because honey is basically just ‘runny’ sugar, with only traces of nutrients.

In the case of a product that contains both natural and ‘added’ sugar(s), it would be very time-consuming to work-out exactly how many grams of the total sugars listed in the nutritional information are natural, and how many grams are ‘added’, so you will have to be guided by the order in which the sources of natural sugars, and ‘added’ sugars appear in the list of ingredients – the first item in the list is what the food or drink contains the most of, and sometimes the actual percentage is stated – for example, a list of ingredients on a pack of braised red cabbage may contain: Red cabbage (50%), apples (15%), onions (13%), plus other ingredients, including sugar. In a product like this, where 78% of the ingredients are vegetables and/or fruits, then it isn’t worth worrying about how much ‘added’ sugar it contains – just enjoy it!

You don’t need to be concerned about the natural sugars in plain (i.e. no other ingredients added) whole fruits or vegetables, whether fresh, canned, dried, or frozen, but fruit juices and ‘smoothies’ contain an unnaturally high level of natural sugars (would you actually eat all the separate fruits that have been pressed into the smoothie?), so this website recommends a daily allowance of just one 200-300 ml drink of fruit juice or smoothie, preferably drunk after a meal instead of a dessert, and one 200-300 ml drink of vegetable juice.

A maximum daily allowance of 50 grams of ‘added’ sugar would soon be used-up if you ate a lot of cake and biscuits – and they tend to be high in fat too. Then there is chocolate… there is the good quality, organic kind, and there is the kind which should really be called brown, sugary vegetable fat. However, if you eat a 100 gram bar of any kind of chocolate, then you will have consumed a massive 30-50 grams of sugar and 30-45 grams of fat (18-22 grams of saturates) – so never eat a whole bar. Although this website recognises that most people are too busy to make their main meals from scratch, cakes can be made when there isn’t a meal deadline to meet - and if you are going to eat cake, then it’s a good idea to make your own, as the labels on shop-bought cakes may state that they are low-fat, but they are usually still high in sugar, and are so small that you could end-up eating several of them. Wholemeal muffins (recipes are on this website) contain fat and sugar, but as they’re made with wholemeal flour they’re quite ‘filling’, so it should be possible to eat less of them than typical shop-bought cakes - and as they include organic chocolate chips, they can also satisfy a craving for chocolate, but without eating too much of it. If you’re not used to baking cakes, then perhaps you know somebody who could help you to get started – however, eating Wholemeal muffins isn’t compulsory! Don’t assume that organic shop-bought cakes and sweet snacks are low in fat or sugar, check labels, and remember to consider how much fat and sugar will be in the amount of the cake or snack that you’ll actually eat in a day.

The sections of the website which give suggestions for what to eat and drink at different times of the day include ways of satisfying a ‘sweet tooth’ without consuming too much ‘added’ sugar or fat.

The Stress-free diet guidelines - sugar:

Please ensure that you have read the Important Notice in the Introduction.

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· Introduction - follow a balanced diet for weight-loss

· Guidelines - balanced diet

· Guidelines - fat

· Guidelines - sugar <<<<<

· Guidelines - salt

· Guidelines - alcohol

· Food labels

· Breakfasts and mid-morning snack suggestions

· Lunch and mid-afternoon snack suggestions

· Evening meal and supper suggestions

· Eating out, special occasions, and holidays

· Morale, motivation, and stress