LIFESTYLE NEWS - Sugar is not necessarily an evil thing. It’s as normal a food as any other…
It just happens to be a food that needs to be VERY strictly restricted if one wants to be healthy and lose weight. The problem is that sugar is added to many foods that you may not expect it to be, and as such you may not be factoring these foods into your daily sugar tally.
Too much sugar in your diet can increase your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and will lead to weight gain.
Here are some places sugar may be hiding in your diet:
1. Pre-made sauces
Pre-made sauces like those bottles of sauce you can buy for pasta can contain 12g of sugar per serving! This is almost half your recommended sugar intake for a day. Check the nutritional info on the packaging to see the sugar content, or make your own sauces at home.
This is much healthier, and far tastier. If you know that you have a busy week ahead, and won’t have lots of time to prepare healthy dinners, why not cook up some tasty sauces over the weekend and freeze them… tomato sauce for Bolognese freezes really easily.
2. Low fat yogurt
Low fat yogurt is a diet-friendly food right? Well, shockingly they can contain up to 30g of sugar per serving, which is as much as two scoops of ice cream. Your best bet with yogurt is to buy plain yogurt and use real fruit and nuts to flavour it. Add a small teaspoon of honey if you are craving some added sweetness.
3. Instant oats
Just like with yogurt, instant oats are healthy until the artificial flavour is added.
A plain serving of instant oats has 1g of sugar per serving whereas a flavoured serving one can contain up to 15g of sugar.
Again, the solution is to flavour your plain oats with some fresh fruit and a little honey and cinnamon.
