about how much sugar I’ve eaten. There’s direct lying, like “I haven’t eaten any sugar today” when I have, and indirect lying where I haven’t corrected people when they assume I never waver from a healthy diet.’
• If you miss out on regular sugar, you feel terrible. YES/NO
Nicki says, ‘If I didn’t eat sugar regularly enough, I was like a monster – irritable, grumpy, headachy and unable to sit still. It was as if I’d been possessed and the only thing that would put it right was a sugar fix.’
• You’ve altered your routine to get sweet foods. YES/NO
Nicki says, ‘When I needed sugar and didn’t have the right foods in the house, I’d make special arrangements to get it, whether it was leaving home half an hour early to ensure I could stop for it or ringing friends and asking them to pick it up on the way to see me.’
• The thought of getting sugar makes you focused and tunnel-visioned. YES/NO
Nicki says, ‘I know all the newsagents near me that sell pick ’n’ mix – and I used to use them as landmarks. If I knew I was going near one and had the opportunity for a “fix”, it was as if my senses were on red alert and my concentration was at its peak.’
• You’ve experienced what feels like a sugar ‘hangover’. YES/NO
Nicki says, ‘I’ve had some memorable alcohol hangovers in my time but my worst hangovers have definitely been after sugar binges. I felt nauseous, headachy and struggled to get out of bed.’
• You often feel sugar is ruling you. YES/NO
Nicki says, ‘Anyone who doesn’t have a thing about sugar probably thinks it’s strange to say this, but it really can feel as though sugar is controlling your life, from your hunger levels and taste buds through to your emotions. My idea of freedom is being able to say “no” to sugar without a second thought.’
• You often binge on sweet foods or white-flour foods such as biscuits or cakes. YES/NO
Nicki says, ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve binged on biscuits, freshly toasted white bread, pick ’n’ mix or cakes. When you love sugar, it becomes an intrinsic part of your life.’
If you’ve said ‘yes’ to two or more of these, you have a problem with sugar. Don’t worry – we’re going to try and help you. Even if this isn’t you, this book will still be of interest, not least in helping you to understand the behaviour of others around you – perhaps friends or relatives who struggle with weight issues or ill health and don’t even realize that sugar could be to blame.
SUGAR IS EVERYWHERE
Picture it – you wake up in the morning and have a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea. You’ll already have eaten more than 8 grams of sugar if you’ve had a bowl of cornflakes – make that 44 grams if it’s a bowl of Frosties. And that’s before you’ve sprinkled sugar on top of your cereal and put two spoons of it in your tea.
As a nation we’re eating more sugar than ever before. The average Briton eats 16 times more sugar today than 100 years ago. In 1900, people ate an average of 4 pounds (around 1.5 kilos) of sugar a year – the equivalent of around a bag and a half of sugar. Today, according to the UK’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey, that figure is 65 pounds or just over 24 kilos – the equivalent of 24 bags of sugar every year. That’s around 65 grams – 13 teaspoons – a day. In the US, added sugar can comprise as much as a quarter of a person’s daily food intake.
You might think, ‘But I don’t even buy that many bags of sugar in a year.’ True, you probably don’t. That’s because the figure comes not just from the sugar we actively put in our food, by sprinkling it on cereal or spooning it into tea and coffee. It also includes the ‘hidden’ sugar that’s so often put into our food at the manufacturing stage, and which we may not even understand we’re consuming. Food manufacturers are being increasingly pressurized by parents, campaign groups, politicians and health experts to reduce levels of sugar, fat and salt in certain foods and to call a halt to advertising foods to children (an issue we look into in Chapter 5). The Food and Drink Federation, which represents food manufacturers, announced that super-size chocolate snacks are due to be axed to help in the battle against obesity, which is a step in the right direction. But in the meantime, the onus is on us to be vigilant and look out for sugar for ourselves.
How Much Sugar Should We Eat?
The UK government and the World Health Organization recommend that starchy carbohydrates such as bread, rice and pasta should constitute 55–75 per cent of our daily food intake. Free sugars or ‘non-milk extrinsic sugars’ – sugar added by us or, more significantly, by the manufacturer – should comprise 10 per cent or less. In other words, no more than one-tenth of our daily calories should come from added sugar.
If the average woman’s recommended daily calorie intake is 1,940 (less if you are overweight and want to shift some pounds), that means no more than 194 calories should come from added sugar. But, as we have seen, the average Briton is already on 65 grams, or a huge 260 calories, of these added sugars per day, 30 per cent more than the recommended maximum. A can of cola contains just over 10 teaspoons of sugar (200 calories) so you can see how easy it is to go over the advised amount. Have a think about how many cans of soft drink, biscuits, cakes, sweets and bowls of cereal you eat in any one day and you’ll probably find this is way more than one-tenth of the food you eat, and far in excess of 10 teaspoons of sugar.
Nicki’s Tip
Want to work out how much sugar there is in a food? Take a look at the label. Where it says ‘carbohydrates’, it generally says ‘of which sugars – Xg’. A teaspoon of sugar is around 5g so divide X by 5 to find out how many teaspoons of sugar it contains. So if it says ‘of which sugars – 15g’, divide 15 by 5 and you’ll know it contains 3 teaspoons.
| THE SUGAR CONTENT OF FOODS | |
| Food | Rounded Teaspoons of Extrinsic (Added) Sugar |
| 1 digestive biscuit | ½ |
| 1 chocolate digestive | 1 |
| 1 slice (45g) of jam-filled sponge cake | 4 |
| Mars Bar | 7 |
| 1 milk chocolate bar (50g) | 5½ |
| 1 scoop of ice cream | 1½ |
| 1 bowl of cornflakes | ½ |
| 1 teaspoon of jam | ¾ |
| Half a tin (200ml) of cream of tomato soup | 1 |
| Half a tin of baked beans | 2½ |
| 1 glass of Lucozade | 6 |
| 1 glass of Ribena | 4 |
| 1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup | 1 |
| 1 tablespoon of sweet pickle | 1 |
|
1 tablespoon of salad cream
|