How to keep sugar down?

lemurcat12

mutantspicy wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

therequiiem wrote: »

I seem to struggle with going over in fat and sugar. It was carbs as well, but I recently upped those because I am 25 weeks pregnant. I kept my fat intake at about 56g and sugar at 30.
My question is, how are you suppose to keep your sugar below 30 when you are encouraged to eat fruits? And sugar is hidden in so many things!

Since you are pregnant I'd talk to your doctor if you were given a goal from him or her.

Where is the 30 g goal from? It is not from MFP unless your calories are disturbingly low. It is a recommendation you sometimes see elsewhere, but it means ADDED sugar, and would not include the sugar from fruit.

I don't find that sugar is HIDDEN in anything, but I suspect if you stop worrying about intrinsic sugar (as from fruit), you won't find it hard to meet your goal.

Really I didn't realize the sugar goal was limited to only added sugar. I always thought that too much sugar whether it comes from apples or candy bars is too much sugar. So my goal says 79g so you are saying I should ignore the sugar I get from bananas, blueberries and black berries when counting against that goal? I find that really confusing. I mean what is the definition, is lactose counted? or sugar in tomato juice? or is really just only table sugar?

The MFP goal is 15% of calories and because MFP cannot separate added from not it's all sugar. However, there's no credible recommendation that's for ALL sugar, so what MFP did is take the recommendation for added sugar and add more based on estimated sugar from fruit and veg (and sweet potatoes or whatever) and increase it. It's not especially useful.

The recommendations I take seriously are the WHO's (under 10%, but under 5% is better, main reason is to avoid excess calories and not crowd out micronutrients) and the US dietary guidelines (under 10%). I tend to eat under 5% on average (some days more, some days less). Those don't apply to intrinsic sugar from dairy, fruit, veg, etc., but note that they are lower than MFP's all sugar goal. Personally, I don't see any nutrition or health reason to worry about fruit and veg or other intrinsic sugar from nutrient dense sources and have not seen any sources supporting the idea that that is a concern if your diet has sufficient protein and fat and is sufficiently diverse in general.

Someone with T2D or IR might have a reason, but they'd be limiting carbs more generally, not just sugar.

Re MFP goal, then, I think it's useless and would instead track protein, fiber, and fat, and look at your diet to make sure it's not especially high in added sugar (and includes good sources of healthy fats). I tend to eyeball to make sure there are no surprises re the amount of added sugar (labels don't tell you, but use common sense and you can roughly figure it out, especially if you don't eat a lot of packaged stuff).

Sel118

WinoGelato wrote: »

fr33sia12 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

sugarnspice0613 wrote: »

Sugar is definitely hidden in many things that are processed which would be the first thing I would cut and try to eat as many whole foods as possible. Sugar is a carb so it makes sense you are going over in both. Berries have the lowest carb counts with strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries giving about 3-4 carbs for a half cup each. To offer more suggestions, it would be helpful if you had an open food diary for me to view your macros/goals and what you are eating as well as knowing why you are restricting sugar to 30.

Can you give some examples of where you feel sugar is hidden in processed foods, and how exactly it’s hidden? I eat a mix of processed foods and Whole Foods and I often see this claim, but I’m rarely over my sugar count. I’m just curious what people are eating that they are surprised to learn have sugar in them? It’s listed on both the ingredients and the nutrition label so I’m not sure how it’s really hidden?

If you don't know all the different names for sugar it can be classed as hidden. Unless you google every ingredient while in the supermarket before you buy it of course, but who wants to do that. Basically the less processed foods the less added sugar you're going to get.

But the sugar quantity is listed right there on the label, as mentioned above it is currently not differentiated as to natural or added sugar, so again, not really hidden or something that needs to be googled, if someone is tracking their sugar.

As I mentioned - I eat quite a bit of processed foods - yesterday in particular I ate almost all processed foods as it was a crazy day. Frozen breakfast bowl, frozen meal for lunch. A chobani flip for a snack, a sandwich with store lunch meat and processed cheese and a can of soup for dinner. With all that I was under both calories and under my sugar goal for the day, it was a rare day I happened to check sugar as I don’t track it specifically, so I had a half serving of talenti after dinner. Still right at goal for sugar. Way over on sodium but that’s not surprising, nor particularly concerning to me.

So again, what are the processed foods where sugar is lurking that people should be watching out for?

The one that really surprised me was a pack of fresh smoked salmon slices. They add demerara sugar to it which really bothers me. Tesco and asda all have added sugar in their packs of smoked salmon no matter what brand, the only place I can find without is Lidl, but I don't always shop there. Lidl smoked salmon is delicious, just as good as the others, makes me wonder why the other brands feel they need to add the sugar.

lemurcat12

Smoked salmon is often cured with sugar (so that certainly wouldn't meet my definition of "hidden" or a surprise even if it weren't on the label, which it is). I also wouldn't expect it to be enough to worry about. Here's an example of a recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016707-brown-sugar-cured-salmon

I did a no added sugar experiment and carefully avoided any sugar (de minimis though it was) from smoked salmon (which is a food I love and eat a lot), among other things. When I repeated the no added sugar thing later I decided to ignore de minimis amounts in savory foods, and when I was ketoing (another experiment) it wasn't enough to worry about. For example, with the WF brand brown sugar is the third ingredient listed (after salmon and salt), yet a serving (2 oz) has less than 1 g of sugar. Eh.

Currently I have some my dad smoked. I haven't asked him what he used, but I know he used to use some brown sugar.