When we ask our patients with higher Fasting blood sugar to control amount of sugar in diet, they say that they don’t have sugar in anything…Let’s do some sugar research in your diet.
Did you know that a tablespoon of regular ketchup contains 4 grams of sugar?! That’s roughly a teaspoon of sugar. And, 3 teaspoons make a tablespoon, sugar represents 30% of ketchup and you say that you don’t have sugar in any form. Sugar is added to most packaged foods even if they are not sweet. It is actually hard to see how much sugar is there in a product by simply reading the ingredient list and the list is usually deceptive. If you find any of these in Ingredient list….all that means is added sugars, manufacturer can label sugar with some really interesting and deceptive names such as: white sugar, brown sugar, confectioner’s sugar, corn syrup, dextrin, honey, invert sugar, maple syrup, raw sugar, beet sugar, cane sugar, corn sweeteners, evaporated cane juice, high fructose corn syrup, malt, molasses, fructose,Crystalline fructose,Dextrose,Golden syrup,Glucose solids, Fruit juice concentrate, Caramel, Rice Syrup, Honey, Sucrose, Sorghum syrup and many more.
Now lets see some normal innocent foods that may have sugar
1 Chocolate chip cookie…2 tsp. sugar
Oatmeal cookie…2 tsp. sugar
1 Chocolate pastry… 8 tsp. sugar !!
1 doughnut …6tsp. sugar
Normally available breads can contain ….1 or 2 tsp. of sugar per slice
Breakfast cereals contain… 2 to 3 tsp. of sugar
1 cup ice cream contains… 3 to 4 tsp. of sugar
150 ml (small glass) 100% orange juice has only… 5 tsp. of sugar J
Thai Grilled Chicken Salad… 8 tsp. of sugar through various sauces that are added!!!!!
And you thought you don’t have sugar in any form.
Manufacturers often add sugar to items you may not EVEN consider sweet to help increase their shelf life.
If you have a higher fasting or random blood sugar and want to lose weight You can approximate the sweetness of sugar with food additives, such as stevia, aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame potassium(in diet coke and diet Pepsi).
Stevia falls under the category of natural sugar substitutes and rest in the above list are artificial sweeteners. Some can be used in cooking and baking like sucralose, but others break down and lose their sweetening qualities which are not heat stable like aspartame. But if you are a person with sweet tooth sweeteners will not be able to help diminish the demands of the sweet tooth….
Another reason to leave sugars can be that too much of sugars reduce your immunity A 350-ml can of Coke contains about 10 teaspoons of sugar. Consumption of antibiotics is increasing by 7% every year so I guess of you reduce sugar intake to no more than 5 tsp. per day both visible and hidden sugar…your immunity will increase and you might require fewer antibiotics,less impact of chickungunya and dengue fever and a better health of cause.
For weight loss you have Your Team NidSun at your disposal.
Eat Good Live Life to the fullest….)