Sugar intake.

alereck

Just a quick question regarding the new WHO recommendation regarding sugar, it states:

"The suggested limits on intake of sugars in the draft guideline apply to all monosaccharides (such as glucose, fructose) and disaccharides (such as sucrose or table sugar) that are added to food by the manufacturer, the cook or the consumer, as well as sugars that are naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates."

This is only for added sugars correct? They noted fruit juices and concentrates so I want to make sure I’m not misinterpreting it.

I love sweets and desserts so this is the macro I go over the most, I have it set up much higher than the recommended limit but I would like to watch it more closely. I was thinking of lowering my daily allowance to recommended levels then omitting the sugar levels from calculations when logging fruits or anything else with natural sugars. It might get too annoying but I want to make sure I understand this correctly before I attempt to do it.

Any input is appreciated.

yarwell

Thier suggested limit excludes the sugars inherent in whole fruit and vegetables, but includes sugar in juices etc.

It moves towards replacing "added" sugar with "free" sugars.

Eventually they'll grow a pair and own up that the molecules are the same, which will make life a lot simpler. You can test for sugar, but not added sugar.

AlabasterVerve

The WHO has previously said that the intrinsic sugar from the recommended fruits, vegetables and dairy is 10% of your total calories. So if you add 10% to whatever their current recommendation is for added sugar -- last I heard it was 10% as well but ideally 5%? -- that would be a decent total sugar goal to shoot for. There was also a study recently that suggested exceeding 25% of your calories in sugar greatly increased your risk for cardiovascular disease mortality but all I've seen is the abstract.

https://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1819573

So 15% (what MFP defaults to) to 20% of your total calories seems to be a safe amount of sugar to consume. For a 1,900 calorie diet that would be 71g - 95g of total sugar a day. All of that is just a guess though -- I'm really not sure any of these sugar recommendations are evidenced based even though I personally keep my sugar as low as possible.

_Zardoz_

The WHO has previously said that the intrinsic sugar from the recommended fruits, vegetables and dairy is 10% of your total calories. So if you add 10% to whatever their current recommendation is for added sugar -- last I heard it was 10% as well but ideally 5%? -- that would be a decent total sugar goal to shoot for. There was also a study recently that suggested exceeding 25% of your calories in sugar greatly increased your risk for cardiovascular disease mortality but all I've seen is the abstract.

https://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1819573

So 15% (what MFP defaults to) to 20% of your total calories seems to be a safe amount of sugar to consume. For a 1,900 calorie diet that would be 71g - 95g of total sugar a day. All of that is just a guess though -- I'm really not sure any of these sugar recommendations are evidenced based even though I personally keep my sugar as low as possible.

the 10% of your calories is actually discretionary calories so calories above what your normal daily needs are. The sugar is evil brigade seen to conveniently forget that part.

yarwell

the 10% of your calories is actually discretionary calories so calories above what your normal daily needs are. The sugar is evil brigade seen to conveniently forget that part.

The American Heart Association say "For most American women, that’s no more than 100 calories per day, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar. For men, it’s 150 calories per day, or about 9 teaspoons." That's 25 or 38 grams per day respectively of added sugars based on "no more than half your discretionary calories".

Discretionary calories are defined as the extra calories over the foods required to meet your basic nutritional needs (RDI of fats, protein, etc etc) without exceeding the energy intake required to maintain weight.

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/120/11/1011.full.pdf

yarwell

" WHO’s current recommendation, from 2002, is that sugars should make up less than 10% of total energy intake per day." http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2014/consultation-sugar-guideline/en/

Most of this and more summarised at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1181259-so-what-s-with-this-sugar-then-revised-faq-jan-2014

AlabasterVerve

the 10% of your calories is actually discretionary calories so calories above what your normal daily needs are. The sugar is evil brigade seen to conveniently forget that part.

Crazypants much? For the record, I'm part of the excessive-sugar-is-evil-brigade -- there's a difference. I just don't think we know what's excessive or not right now but limiting your sugar to 15% - 20% of your total calories seems reasonable to me; not reactionary.

If that doesn't seem reasonable to you that's ok. I'm not going to come snatch the watermelon out of your hands so you can carry on doing what you think is best and healthful.

alereck

The American Heart Association say "For most American women, that’s no more than 100 calories per day, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar. For men, it’s 150 calories per day, or about 9 teaspoons." That's 25 or 38 grams per day respectively of added sugars based on "no more than half your discretionary calories".

Discretionary calories are defined as the extra calories over the foods required to meet your basic nutritional needs (RDI of fats, protein, etc etc) without exceeding the energy intake required to maintain weight.

Thank you; that explain it. I love sweets so this is something I have to work on. I'm currently consuming about 1,900 daily and have my grams limit set at 60 but about 50% of the time I'm at about 80 grams. Unfortunately I can't blame fruits and vegetables, it's mostly added :-( but I do enjoy food with natural sugars so to have better control I want to count them separately.

Thanks guys