Be Careful with 'Low-Fat' option...

vicidoesstuff
vicidoesstuff Posts: 214 Member
edited September 2024 in Food and Nutrition
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7120673.ece

I was browsing The Times' health section and found this.



""HEALTHY” low-fat snacks sold by Britain’s supermarkets contain up to 69% sugar — more than three times the amount found in chocolate ice cream.

A range of products — bought as healthy options for children’s lunchboxes and office snacks — are being sweetened with extra sugar and glucose syrup. Many low-fat options have a sugar content significantly higher than in the conventional products.

Health experts are now demanding the food industry reduce its reliance on sugar in many popular processed foods. They warn new research shows too much sugar not only makes you fat and causes tooth decay, but might increase the risk of heart disease.

They say savoury foods from tinned spaghetti to chilli con carne sauces are also being over sweetened with extra sugar. Even some supermarket sushi — a popular “healthy” option — is given a sprinkling of sugar.

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said: “Sugar is a cheap commodity and is used in bulk in a lot of foods. There needs to be pressure on the industry to produce foods which have a lower sugar content.”

Popular options for lunch-time snacks can contain as much as two-thirds sugar. Fruit Bowl apple and strawberry fruit flakes contain 69% sugar, with more than 13.8g in a 20g packet and more than five times the amount of sugar found in fresh fruit. By comparison, Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream contains only about 20% sugar.

Tesco Healthy Living forest fruit and raisin bars contain 50% sugar, with two spoonfuls of sugar in every bar. Kellogg’s Fruit Winders Doubles, which are marketed as “all the goodness of fruit, with the great taste of a sweet”, are 37% sugar.

Kellogg’s Special K Fruits of the Forest bars — promoted to consumers hoping to keep their weight down — are 39% sugar, a higher proportion than in the company’s Coco Pops cereals.

The bars contain more than five types of sugar, including glucose syrup, fructose, dextrose and glycerol. They also contain sorbitol, an artificial sweetener.

In recent years, the food industry has focused on reducing saturated fat in products because of its links to obesity and heart disease. In many cases, sugar was used to compensate for the loss of taste and texture from lower fat content.

The baked low-fat version of Walkers ready salted crisps has 16 times more sugar (6.5g per 100g) than in the regular version (0.4g). Yeo Valley natural yoghurt has 8.4g of sugar in the low-fat version, compared with 6.6g in the regular version.

Soups, baked beans and chilli con carne sauce can contain up to 6% sugar, although one of the biggest producers, Heinz, has reformulated products to reduce both salt and sugar.

A supermarket snack such as chicken tikka with some mango chutney can contain nearly four teaspoons of sugar. Sugared water is even added to the rice in supermarket sushi, so that 10% of the whole product is sugar.

The Food Standards Agency classifies a high amount of sugar as more than 15g per 100g, and a low amount as less than 5g per 100g. Officials have urged the industry to reduce sugar, fat and salt in products.

The sugar lobby has argued that the “balance of evidence” does not indicate sugar causes obesity, heart disease and diabetes. However, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last month said people who ate more added sugar were more likely to have lower levels of good cholesterol and higher levels of some blood fats, which are risk factors for heart disease.

“Just like eating a high-fat diet can increase your levels of triglycerides and high cholesterol, eating sugar can also affect those same lipids,” said Dr Miriam Vos, one of the authors of the study.

The Food and Drink Federation said food manufacturers had worked hard to improve food labelling and reformulated hundreds of products in the past two years to reduce levels of salt, fat and sugar.

Barbara Gallani, its director of food safety and science, said: “Demonising individual food components doesn’t help consumers to build a realistic approach to their diet. The key to good health is a balanced and varied diet, in the context of a healthy lifestyle that includes plenty of physical activity.”

Ian Ding, managing director of Fruit Bowl, said the fruit flakes were not marketed as healthy and said added sugar was required as part of the manufacturing process. A spokesman for Kellogg’s said its Winders Doubles and Special K bars each contained the equivalent of less that two teaspoons of sugar, which was less than 10% of recommended intake."

Replies

  • sparkles321
    sparkles321 Posts: 107
    I started staying away from anything touting "Low" or "High" anything. Added fibers tend to be added by chemical compounds, not packed with good natural sources as they should be. Anything "Low" tends to be filled with additives to make up for taste or texture that is lost with whatever reduction they are doing. I no longer eat anything "diet". I just eat whole foods and make everything from scratch. (Except the occasional cheat meal, of course)
  • vicidoesstuff
    vicidoesstuff Posts: 214 Member
    When I read Gillian McKeith's view on food, the one thing I took from her (because her food choices tend to be rather expensive or requiring a blender or more time than there is in the day) was reading packaging. If it has more ingredients in it that you don't know, don't bother buying/eating it. She also brought forward that sugar isn't always labelled as sugar. Sometimes it is glucose, fructose etc. It's just sugar in different forms.

    The obvious thing is the check the packaging and read the first few ingredients. It's listed with highest content first, moving to lower. If sugar is the first or second on the list, you knooow it's not good.
  • alisonengland
    alisonengland Posts: 110 Member
    This is so true. I often eat a low fat yogurt, an "eat natural " cereal bar and an apple and my sugar levels are sky high. I have started checking the sugar content on everything I buy now and it is shocking. The article was really scary tho for things you wouldnt even consider had sugar in them like sushi (my favourite food!)

    And BTW Ikiness ( you are from Birmingham right?) have you been to Woktastic- lovely fresh sushi and cheap!
  • vicidoesstuff
    vicidoesstuff Posts: 214 Member
    I live in Birmingham for Uni, yeah.
    Haven't been to Woktastic. For sushi, though, that might damage me a bit. I'm allergic to fish, you see, haha. Thanks for the suggestion, though! :laugh:
  • alisonengland
    alisonengland Posts: 110 Member
    I live in Birmingham for Uni, yeah.
    Haven't been to Woktastic. For sushi, though, that might damage me a bit. I'm allergic to fish, you see, haha. Thanks for the suggestion, though! :laugh:

    Hmm. you are right! It might not appeal to you then! I used to live in Moseley and blame half my weight gain on baltis!
  • barty
    barty Posts: 729
    Thanks for posting, It just goes to show you must always read the labels......even though the writing on the ingredients list seems to be getting smaller (or I need glasses)!!!!! probably need the glasses :laugh:
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