Sugar and the Gurus

So, today we learn that some (most) of the people who are on the panel advising the government on safe sugar levels are paid or funded by the likes of Coca Cola, Unilever (owns Wall’s and Ben & Jerry’s) and Sugar Boards.  Its tempting to think this is like Foster’s helping an alcoholic to stop drinking or Benson Hedges campaigning to stop smoking.  

Its not for me to tell you who to believe or, for that matter, what to eat.  But I can pass on some advice from the NHS website on sugar consumption.

We are told that added sugars (in tea for example) shouldn’t make up more than 10% of our calorie intake on a daily basis.  About 70g for men and 50g for women so go steady on the fruit juice too.  

And check the food labels – we are looking for the ‘Carbohydrates (of which sugars)’ figure 

• more than 22.5 g of total sugars per 100g is high

• 5g of total sugars or less per 100g is low

So, I checked a few items,

• low fat yoghurt – 6.9g sugar per 100g – lowish – but the added sugar compensates for the low fat taste

• Innocent Orange juice – 8.1 g per 100ml, creeping up

• Weetabix – just 4.4g per 100 g – 

• Tesco finest muesli – 15.6g per 100g

• Tesco finest granola – 20.6g per 100g

Doesn’t take long to get to our allowance does it?

So, we are not sure if the gurus are completely objective – but we can all read the labels – and take responsibility ourselves – we did it for fats – now onto sugars!