Avoiding Sugar In Food: Just How Hard Does It Have To Be?

So,  I have just passed the 5 week mark of avoiding sugar in food. And yep,  if you've read any of my previous posts, I am happy to say that most of the changes and benefits previously described are still evident: improved skin,  brighter eyes, feeling less tired, a clearer mind. In fact, I could probably say that feeling consistently great has become my new 'normal'.  Yay me.

But I am starting to realise these benefits come at a price: I'm either going to have to find a lot more time to prepare food each day which I then have to transport to work, or I'll have to resign myself to eating a very limited diet during the week. Truth be told, there may be a good reason why the No Added Sugar way of eating is mainly promoted by celebrities.

Let me explain.  I started this blog when I was a couple of weeks into a self-devised No Added Sugar regime, brimming with energy and keen to share information about this and other diet related issues that have become part of our family's daily life. At the time I was having a short break between jobs, so had lots of time to read up on sugar and to experiment with recipes and ways of preparing meals without sugar. Cooking being the operative word - lots of egg based breakfasts and lunches - everything delicious.

Two weeks ago I started my new job. It is in London, which is a few hours' commute away. It's a great job but I now have an early start 3 days a week. I will sometimes have to work late and am not now at home for as many meals as before. Monday to Friday I now have breakfast and lunch away from home most days, sometimes also my evening meal. And I have discovered that it is hard to eat a variety of low sugar food when you're out and about.

Breakfast - I mainly have to take this myself so I can eat it on the train. There is absolutely no point in trying to pick something up at the station. The baguettes are made with refined flour, as are the pastries which contain added sugar as well. Chances are that the yoghurt-based breakfast contained sweetened yoghurt and/or granola, as does the porridge. This is true, even in 'healthy eating chains' such as Pret a Manager and Eat. So breakfast these days is either a no sugar peanut butter sandwich on Vogel's bread or a homemade yoghurt, frozen berry and chia seed mix left in the fridge overnight. The latter is tasty, but becomes plastic container #1 in my work bag.

Lunch - easier, because of the popularity of salads in sandwich shops. But I am amazed by how high in sugar some of these are. I thought at first that I was just not spotting the right things so spent some of my commuting time looking at the Eat and Pret websites. I discovered almost no veggie soups with less than 8g of sugar in a small serving. The same goes for salads, although M&S salads seem a bit better. Quite often, the lowest sugar option for a takeaway lunch will be a wrap.

So why is 8g of sugar my benchmark? Yet again I am limited by a lack of authoritative scientific advice on how much of which sugars we should be aiming for. But, if 4g = 1 teaspoon of sugar, and if we are meant to be consuming no more than 25g or 6 teaspoons a day - see this BBC news article -  then I don't really want 2 teaspoons to be used up on one part of lunch. Because, let's be honest, a small soup or salad is not really going to keep me happy by itself for that long...

Increasingly, therefore, I am taking a homemade salad or sandwich for my lunch. Plastic container #2. Oh, and a bottle of water for the train/tube. Plastic container #3. And a couple of pieces of fruit in a small bag. Plastic container #4. I honestly think I carried fewer plastic containers of food around with me when I had a couple of toddlers in tow. But this isn't the only drawback. I love food. I want to be able to eat a variety of things. There is real possibility that my weekday diet will become boring and limited, simply because I don't have the time and space in my commuting bag to mix things up more and because the supermarkets and sandwich chains are way behind the curve on the issue of sugar in food.

Most of us mere mortals don't have the time or resources of Davina McCall or Gwyneth Paltrow. Working parents have to work, give time to our kids, shop, cook and do chores without the assistance of a PA, au pair or nanny. Do we really have to factor in preparing all our own food from scratch in order to avoid poisoning ourselves with sugar? The supermarkets and and sandwich chains are really missing a trick here.

4 Weeks of No Added Sugar: So What's Different?

There have been quite a few changes in our family over the past month. They range from the significant - Meg has now officially left school, only returning for her last few A'level exams; Nora has been taking her GCSEs; Drew and I have both changed jobs  - to the relatively minor - Nora has started running in the mornings; Harry and Robbie are hanging out together a lot more, etc.

In the grand scheme of things, at a time when so many people in our local and global communities are facing so many challenges, a personal decision to stop consuming unnecessary sugar in food should come way down on the 'things of minor importance' scale. But...indulge me. Because the impact of such a small decision has been really surprising.

1. I feel very different. It is very hard to quantify or describe changes of this nature. Clearly it is a subjective change that sceptics would argue is the result of something akin to a placebo effect. But I feel much...better. Brighter. I have masses more energy. It's weird. My new job involves early starts, hours of commuting and a steep learning curve. But I feel great. Even though I felt tired when I woke up on Thursday and Friday, I have had no brain fog at all and absolutely no slumps in energy during the day. I am thinking clearly. My moods have been stable and I feel calmer. All true. The only other experience I can compare this change to is when I gave up smoking, many years ago - but this is much better. Try it. 
2. I look different. As previously mentioned, the tone of my skin has improved. It is warmer and brighter. I have, dare I say it, a glow. I haven't had time to use body lotion in the mornings but the skin on my body is soft, not dry. My eyes are brighter and my teeth/gums feel really...healthy. Overall, as Drew has mentioned, I look really well.
3. My palate has changed. The few sweet things I have tasted - a sip of a relatively low sugar drink for example - taste shockingly sweet. It is not a pleasant sensation at all. And I have absolutely no interest in confectionery - my eye now just skims over chocolate bars, cakes etc. in shops while I look for something I actually want to eat. I noticed last might that the automatic message from my brain at the end of meals ("Something sweet now please") has just...stopped. I don't feel deprived. I'm just not interested. I am eating a couple of portions of fruit a day which taste delicious but is mainly because fruit fits nicely into a packed lunch for the office. Unlike some of the celebrity advocates of no added sugar diets, I am not resorting to tactics such as brushing teeth early in the evening in order to avoid wanting to eat later. I don't need to.
4. My body shape is changing. Just to be clear, I haven't lost significant weight. (I have my personal theories as to why, to be the subject of another post). But my waist is leaner and my stomach remains resolutely without bloating throughout the day. I think (but have no way of knowing in the absence of weight loss) that I may be losing abdominal fat: there is certainly a reduction in 'muffin tops' with certain pairs of jeans. I feel trimmer. 
5. The kids have become much more sugar aware. I felt a little guilty about this at first - teenagers, (especially girls) and body image - but I am over that now. Nora (16) and Harry (nearly 13) were the sweetest toothed family members and they have both started to think and ask me about the sugar content of various processed foods. They are both still eating regular meals and snacks in between but they are making different, healthier food choices. For Harry in particular this is somewhat miraculous. He has started to replace snack foods with healthier options - nuts instead of crisps, for example. The message I am trying to give the kids is not avoid sugar in all forms but to try to make their consumption of it a choice. So choose to have a sweet pudding after dinner if that it what they like. But don't also choose to have sweet snacks and sugary drinks all day. I am also hoping that their overall sugar consumption will be down because of changes to the family shopping. Tesco, again, seems to be coming out on top when it comes to bread that has been made without sugar, no added sugar peanut butter and low sugar choices.

Drew and I have just had a chat about this post. He has just come back from a high energy bike ride and said, in effect, he is glad that No Added Sugar is working so well for me but that "he doesn't need to do it". Drew is indeed super slim and fit at present, with a big bike ride planned for next weekend. But, as I have suggested to him, he may be missing the point. Reducing sugar intake isn't just about weight control. The changes I have noticed are, for me personally, powerful support for the hypothesis that the sugar I was previously consuming may have been a toxin, now removed from my system.

Dreaming of Marmalade - 3 Weeks of No Added Sugar

So, at the end of today it will be 3 weeks since I switched to a 'no added sugar' way of eating. Actually, it's probably more like 19 days since my initial decision was to try only eating savoury things for a few days, taken after an annoying lunchtime trying to find something appealing in a supermarket 'free from' range which wasn't sweet, i.e. not a cake, biscuit, muesli bar.

I was at the time yet again avoiding wheat in order to eliminate bloating. (By bloating I mean starting the day wearing a trouser suit which is comfortably loose at the waist and ending it looking 4 months pregnant and wishing I could undo my trouser button when I sit down). Unfortunately sugar in any quantity has always left me feeling 'off' and itchy skinned and I had rapidly become fed up with reaching for something sweet - even for fruit - when my concentration started to drop mid afternoon. Enough was enough. Time to step away from the sugar.

That weekend, after watching Dr Robert Lustig's lecture Sugar; the Bitter Truth then reading the labels of various foods in our cupboard, I realised that obviously sweetened food was only part of my issue. I had stumbled across the growing groundswell of opinion that life without sugar is better all round. However, if I wanted to enjoy all of the possible benefits, I would have to go further.

Unfortunately the currently best selling books and popular websites devoted to giving up sugar are not entirely consistent. Some seem to be advocating a diet containing almost no complex carbohydrates, relying instead on fresh vegetables, full fat protein, a bit of fruit and the odd super-grain. One website waxed lyrical about how much healthier and happier the author felt without sugar - but also said that she now rarely went out out to dinner with friends, in order to avoid complications. Meh. For me, a vaguely  foodie vegetarian and mother of growing kids, that does not sound like the recipe for a happy life.

So, having read quite a bit and mulled it over for a while, by the end of that weekend I have devised the following rules for my personal no added sugar way of eating:

1. No processed, refined carbohydrates - i.e. no white flour, white pasta, etc.
2. Lots of wholegrains, provided they aren't in a product to which sugar has been added. (I have discovered that this is particularly an issue with bread)
3. No sweets or chocolate unless I have made them myself. (As if; I haven't had time yet!).
4. Lots of vegetables, fish, cheese, dairy, eggs, quorn, oils, nuts, seeds, legumes, etc.
5. No food to which a sugar has been added. This covers a lot of store cupboard foods, including savoury foods such as some crisps, stock cubes, etc. And marmalade...
6. No fruit juice (which is very high in fructose but without fruit's natural fibre).
7. OK in moderation - fruit, coconut products and other foods which naturally contain sugar, provided they don't come with (1). I am eating 2-3 portions of fruit a day.
8. No cakes, muffins, etc. unless it has only been sweetened with fruit or coconut oil.

It sounds quite complicated written it out but, actually, it is quite straight forward. If a food isn't in it's natural state, I ask myself whether sugar has been added to it. If it has, I don't eat it.

I'm not sure how sustainable this is. I have never been one for diets and, at the moment, I do feel slightly deprived. Mainly of something sweet on toast in the morning. Much as I enjoy eggs, Marmite, no added sugar nut butters and cheese, I actually dreamt about marmalade a few days ago, Not good.

But the last 3 weeks have also brought benefits. My experience to date:

1. Everything the no sugar advocates say about having more energy is true. I have lots more energy. I am waking up before the alarm some mornings.
2. My head seems a little clearer (although that could be down to being on a short break between jobs!).
3. My skin has improved. Drew says it looks healthier. I think my skin tone is better and it feels softer.
4. The white of my eyes are much brighter. (I have no idea why).
5. My cheekbones have come back. I wasn't exactly moon faced previously but my face has better contours.
6. My teeth feel stronger. It's weird. I find myself snapping them in the manner of a dog or something after brushing.
7. No bloating. At all. I wake up and go to bed with a stomach which may not have a 6 pack above it but is certainly not sticking out.
8. I have lost about 3-4 lbs in weight. A word of caution on this one: I have been monitoring this and it has been fluctuating quite a bit but the general trend down.
9. I look and feel trimmer. My clothes are fitting me better. (Without wishing to tempt fate, I think my repeat caesarean  'flap' may finally, after all these years, be diminishing...)
10. My palate has changed. I am much more sensitive to sweet things. I had a tiny lick of a not particularly sweet cake mixture the other day and the sweet taste felt so intense it was almost a burning sensation.

I still don't know if living a no added sugar life is something I will be able to do long term. I don't want to become a person who doesn't go out for meals with friends. I don't want to feel deprived. I want to be able to eat some of the cakes and puddings I make for the family. I certainly don't want to dream about marmalade. I love food and I love cooking. But, for now, I am keeping an open mind.

Reducing sugar for kids. Great idea, but...

There is an interesting article on the BBC website today about Tesco's plans to reduce the amount of sugar they put in their soft drinks. (See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32849878).

As previously stated, I am newly arrived at the no added sugar bandwagon; in fact, I am not yet fully aboard. I am not yet confident that I will be able to maintain a no added sugar regime without a significant number of indulgences. Surprisingly enough, I haven't tried this before. I wasn't actually aware of the celebrity-endorsed, no added sugar media groundswell until 2 weeks ago when I decided to change the balance of sweet to savoury I was eating during my average working day. The motivation for this decision may be the subject of a later post but was sadly not the result being on trend.

Having made it, it took no time at all to stumble across the online canon devoted to why we should avoid consuming sugar. Unfortunately not all of the 'what to avoid' advice is consistent so to some extent I am now improvising my own no added sugar regime. I have noticed several positives (sleeping better; whites of eyes brighter) and only a few negatives (a bit hungrier). Yay me. But how far should I be inflicting this sugar free experiment on the rest of my family?

We all know that sugar is bad for us but we eat it anyway. Even brown rice types like me, who probably wouldn't eat a bag Haribos even for cash, (it's the smell), happily churn out trays of flapjacks and muffins for our kids to snack on and bake endless fairy cakes for school fundraising activities. And don't even get me started on chocolate. I am not sure I actually know any adult females who are completely immune to the siren call of chocolate, ever. But until now I have persuaded myself that, provided the kids only have sugary treats a couple of times a week, the amount they have is not too bad for them. All things in moderation, yes?

Of course, this reasoning falls apart when the kids in question start secondary school. Trust me, all of the carefully structured mealtime conversations about 'good foods' and 'bad foods' fly out of the window when they slip the yoke of parental dietary control and taste the freedom of choosing if and what to eat between meals.  The average teenager revels in unfettered access to sugar. Biscuits, sweets, chocolate, fizzy drinks; the cheaper the better. Pound shops are the retail outlets of choice for a Year 8 with a some change in their pocket.

For two of our older three children this has thankfully only been a phase. The jury is still out on Harry, not yet 13. His teenage sweet tooth has been more pronounced than either of his sisters were. Is it a boy thing? Every sleepover Harry has been to in the past year has involved smuggled energy drinks, packets of biscuits and bags of Doritos. As the mum of one of his friends puts it, sugar is their drug of choice.

I asked our girls this evening how old they were when they stopped eating too much sugar. They couldn't remember but both said they had stopped when they realised the sugar was making them feel awful. They also said that a lot of their friends (now aged 16 and 18) still eat loads of sugary food every day. As for Harry, he has made a noticeable effort in the past couple of weeks to eat more healthily. I wouldn't say that his sweet tooth is going but he is making an increasing number of healthy choices. Me talking about sugar a lot may have had something to do with this.

Sorry everyone. But I have been dismayed by how much of the food in our cupboard I am having to avoid or replace because of added sugar. Most breads. Mayonnaise. Most crisps. Stock cubes. Stock cubes? Reducing our children's sugar intake is going to take a lot more than buying a tub of stevia.