Cutting Sugar From my Diet entirely
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paperpudding wrote: »If you have a can of soda (coke) a day, in a year you will be 1kg heavier. Take 20 years and wonder why you are 50lbs overweight.
Lots of people could have a can of soda a day and not gain weight - as long as it fits in their calorie level...
That's fine if that's actually true, but those empty soda calories usually don't fit into the average person's already bloated caloric intake. "Lots of people" could probably drink a soda every day, no problem, but I don't think most can. It's no mystery that people who have a major soda habit end up losing weight when they quit drinking sugar beverages. Even if they make no other changes. So why wouldn't people also gain weight by drinking the excess calories in sugary beverages?
Most of the people I know who drink soda every day drink multiple servings of it. And I don't actually know any regular soda drinkers (I mean people who drink it every single day) past the age of 25 who aren't also weight-challenged and/or pre-diabetic. Of course, you might be one of those people, but I don't actually know you, so I can't really comment on that. But I do know several people who dropped a bunch of weight simply by quitting their daily sugar-soda habit. I know that's not "scientific," but real-life trends among people I actually know are something I do pay attention to...
I myself will have the rare soda on certain occasions, but not very often. It seems like a complete waste of calories to me. Even if I earned a bunch of extra calories doing a long run, I'd like to spend them on things that will help me recover and get stronger. And then there's cake. I'd rather eat cake than drink fizzy sugar-water.
Sure, you will gain weight if you eat anything that brings you over your calorie limits. But at least when somebody's eating "a grilled steak" they're getting some protein and vitamins with it. It's probably smarter to ditch the empty, useless sugar soda calories first, if you're looking for something to cut back on. Maybe that's the point some people are trying to make? If you have a limited calorie budget, it's not smart to spend it all on soda. Because in order to fit soda in, you may have to eliminate something else - like good nutrition.
But everybody's different, so more power to the people who happily drink soda every day and make it work. That's cool, too.
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Heinz Tomato Ketchup (UK) label.
Ingredients: Tomatoes, Spirit Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, Spice & Herb Extracts, Spice.
How disgraceful to hide an ingredient right there in the list of ingredients in third place!
And then they tell you how many calories by weight and by suggested serving size.
Isn't that awful? It's almost like they are giving people the information to take personal responsibility for how many calories they eat.
/sarcasm
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So you know everything that is in your food? It's trial and error, people learn through mistakes and exploring food labelsAlatariel75 wrote: »strawberrysnap wrote: »
I actually meant people wouldn't automatically assume ketchup has a lot of added sugar but ok take my comment as you wishAlatariel75 wrote: »strawberrysnap wrote: »Ok I tried this out a while ago and it honestly wasn't as hard as it seems but be careful because first of all the only benefit I had was less sugar cravings but I had major headaches plus there is lots of sugar in hidden things like ketchup etc
The sugar in ketchup isn't "hidden". It's an ingredient. If you don't know it's there, it's a deficiency in your cooking knowledge, not something "hidden".
My point is that people are so divorced from what goes in their food these days that they don't seem to have any idea that there is sugar in things like ketchup, and bread and all sports of foods that aren't commonly thought of as sugary, but then are made out to have "hidden" sugar, when really it's just a lack of food knowledge on the part of the consumer.
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strawberrysnap wrote: »
So you know everything that is in your food? It's trial and error, people learn through mistakes and exploring food labelsAlatariel75 wrote: »strawberrysnap wrote: »
I actually meant people wouldn't automatically assume ketchup has a lot of added sugar but ok take my comment as you wishAlatariel75 wrote: »strawberrysnap wrote: »Ok I tried this out a while ago and it honestly wasn't as hard as it seems but be careful because first of all the only benefit I had was less sugar cravings but I had major headaches plus there is lots of sugar in hidden things like ketchup etc
The sugar in ketchup isn't "hidden". It's an ingredient. If you don't know it's there, it's a deficiency in your cooking knowledge, not something "hidden".
My point is that people are so divorced from what goes in their food these days that they don't seem to have any idea that there is sugar in things like ketchup, and bread and all sports of foods that aren't commonly thought of as sugary, but then are made out to have "hidden" sugar, when really it's just a lack of food knowledge on the part of the consumer.
I can't speak for everyone here, but I've been reading labels for 30+ years ... ever since labels have started appearing on food! So yeah, I've got a reasonable idea what's in there. Even as a kid, I read the ingredients lists on cereal boxes in both English and French.
I've also been counting calories for 30+ years. When there weren't helpful sites like this, I went to the library and researched how many calories were in things ... and what was in things.
Fortunately, my mother was a nurse and she had numerous medical texts some of which also assisted me in finding out what was in the food I ate.11 -
Heinz Tomato Ketchup (UK) label.
Ingredients: Tomatoes, Spirit Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, Spice & Herb Extracts, Spice.
How disgraceful to hide an ingredient right there in the list of ingredients in third place!
And then they tell you how many calories by weight and by suggested serving size.
Isn't that awful? It's almost like they are giving people the information to take personal responsibility for how many calories they eat.
/sarcasm
So if I am craving something sweet I will just eat a spoon of ketchup
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strawberrysnap wrote: »Heinz Tomato Ketchup (UK) label.
Ingredients: Tomatoes, Spirit Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, Spice & Herb Extracts, Spice.
How disgraceful to hide an ingredient right there in the list of ingredients in third place!
And then they tell you how many calories by weight and by suggested serving size.
Isn't that awful? It's almost like they are giving people the information to take personal responsibility for how many calories they eat.
/sarcasm
So if I am craving something sweet I will just eat a spoon of ketchup
You could!! It is that sweet to the taste. When I'm in NA, if I actually use ketchup on anything (very rare), I will salt it to try to cut the syrupy sweet taste.1 -
Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of sugar-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising1
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* I mean ketchup typo sorry0
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strawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
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People are here for different reasons and one is to learn but there is a difference openly exposing people and simply informing2
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NOT a peer reviewed article and written by a guy that SUPPORTS and sells Paleo books. FAIL.RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »Start reasonably and cut refined sugars for 2 weeks and see how you feel. Make sure you are not replacing with a bunch of artificial sweeteners. Due to a health issue I had to cut refined sugars but still use honey agave and natural sugars in fruits and vegetables. My goal is to stay under 30g a day. Think that is about as close as I can get to "no sugar" and eat a complete diet. (2100 cal/day)
How would cutting refined sugar help a health issue if you are replacing it with natural sugar?
Your body doesn't care where it comes from. Sugar is sugar.
Your body does care.
Refined sugar is broken down by the body differently than natural occouring sugars. Refined sugars are made of bonded sucrose and glucose and when they are processed by the body it dramatically increases insulin production. Or in my case fuel for bacteria production. Consuming 30g +/- of sugar daily is pretty low considering a 12oz can of coke contains 40g.
Got a link to some science on that?
1) Refined sugar (table sugar, also called sucrose) is made of glucose and fructose. Guess what honey is made of? Glucose and fructose. Guess what high fructose corn syrup is made of? You guessed it - glucose and fructose.
2) The body digests/metabolizes all sugars (refined or natural) into monosaccharides (chiefly glucose), regardless of their source. Sugar is sugar.
How your body metabolises naturally occurring sugars is different from how it metabolises artificial or processed/refined sugars. They did a study of artificial honey versus natural honey where the artificial honey had exact same ratio of glucose to fructose molecules. What they found was that the body treated the two honeys significantly differently. Too, in studies of the Kuna people who get the majority of their calories from fruit, there are no sugar related diseases and their body mass remains lean. Further studies have shown that the same molecules of sugar are processed differently...for example the fructose eaten with fruit was processed differently from HFCS...and actually that pure fructose was toxic.
https://chriskresser.com/is-all-sugar-created-equal/
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Given. But he is simply summarising peer reviewed studies that are published on PubMed and are referenced within his article via hyperlinks. It's up to you if you want to ignore the actual studies he's referencing simply because this news reporter as it were is not an expert and has personal views you don't agree with. Me, I don't really dig into the personal background of reporters, I just skip to the scientific studies behind it. You're never going to find an article without bias one way or another. But it seems you'd only actually consider articles by people with the same bias as yourself, which is a bit narrow minded imho. I'm not a Paleo advocate myself simply because there is no one Paleo Diet that ever existed in human history so the name itself and its whole theory is based on a nonexistent premise. But that said, doesn't mean I'm not going to be open to information from all sources. I'd be happy to review any articles or studies you may wish to post on the subject. Saying you don't agree because of the credential of a reporter isn't really presenting additional information so much as criticising a spokespersons personal views...somewhat irrelevant. Cheers.1 -
Different opinions I guess, I personally eat ketchup with virtually everything and avoid salt but I appreciate the clarity thank youstrawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
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strawberrysnap wrote: »People are here for different reasons and one is to learn but there is a difference openly exposing people and simply informing
Well, there you go ... now you know.
Now ... about tins of chicken and tuna ... and cans of soup ... and bread & butter pickles ... and pretty much all cereals ...
One of the things I've recommended on several occasions in this forum is to spend some time wandering the aisles of a grocery store and reading the labels. You can find some great low calorie stuff that way, but it can also be an eye-opening experience.5 -
strawberrysnap wrote: »
Different opinions I guess, I personally eat ketchup with virtually everything and avoid salt but I appreciate the clarity thank youstrawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
For what it's worth I thought ketchup was a good example not because it has sugar in it, but because over time the amount of sugar added to it has increased substantially. You see once HFCS became widely available, they started using it as well as sugar. So today's ketchup from a Heinz and other brands is much sweeter than it used to be.2 -
strawberrysnap wrote: »
Different opinions I guess, I personally eat ketchup with virtually everything and avoid salt but I appreciate the clarity thank youstrawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
For what it's worth I thought ketchup was a good example not because it has sugar in it, but because over time the amount of sugar added to it has increased substantially. You see once HFCS became widely available, they started using it as well as sugar. So today's ketchup from a Heinz and other brands is much sweeter than it used to be.
http://www.heinzketchup.com/Products/Heinz Ketchup 32oz
No sugar in it, only hfcs, a tiny bit more total sugars than the one I calculated the amount of added sugar for where it was below 1 gram per serving.1 -
stevencloser wrote: »strawberrysnap wrote: »
Different opinions I guess, I personally eat ketchup with virtually everything and avoid salt but I appreciate the clarity thank youstrawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
For what it's worth I thought ketchup was a good example not because it has sugar in it, but because over time the amount of sugar added to it has increased substantially. You see once HFCS became widely available, they started using it as well as sugar. So today's ketchup from a Heinz and other brands is much sweeter than it used to be.
http://www.heinzketchup.com/Products/Heinz Ketchup 32oz
No sugar in it, only hfcs, a tiny bit more total sugars than the one I calculated the amount of added sugar for where it was below 1 gram per serving.
Ah, but that's only one line of Heinz ketchup and it's recipe today. I was talking about the recipe overvtime and all their ketchups. If you look. You'll see that today their simply ketchup and organic ketchup lines use sugar not HFCS. Too, Heinz doubled the sugar content in all their ketchups in 1970. They later switched to adding HFCS in various levels over the years...as HFCS got cheaper than sugar the amount of HFCS vs sugar ratio increased until recently earlier THIS year they made their regular line of ketchup sweetened entirely with HFCS.0 -
I loooooooooove ketchup! If you see me eating ketchup, you would say, "Would you like some fries with your ketchup?"
I try to keep my sodium levels down, and ketchup, sadly, has a lot of sodium.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »strawberrysnap wrote: »
Different opinions I guess, I personally eat ketchup with virtually everything and avoid salt but I appreciate the clarity thank youstrawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
For what it's worth I thought ketchup was a good example not because it has sugar in it, but because over time the amount of sugar added to it has increased substantially. You see once HFCS became widely available, they started using it as well as sugar. So today's ketchup from a Heinz and other brands is much sweeter than it used to be.
http://www.heinzketchup.com/Products/Heinz Ketchup 32oz
No sugar in it, only hfcs, a tiny bit more total sugars than the one I calculated the amount of added sugar for where it was below 1 gram per serving.
Ah, but that's only one line of Heinz ketchup and it's recipe today. I was talking about the recipe overvtime and all their ketchups. If you look. You'll see that today their simply ketchup and organic ketchup lines use sugar not HFCS. Too, Heinz doubled the sugar content in all their ketchups in 1970. They later switched to adding HFCS in various levels over the years...as HFCS got cheaper than sugar the amount of HFCS vs sugar ratio increased until recently earlier THIS year they made their regular line of ketchup sweetened entirely with HFCS.stevencloser wrote: »strawberrysnap wrote: »
Different opinions I guess, I personally eat ketchup with virtually everything and avoid salt but I appreciate the clarity thank youstrawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
For what it's worth I thought ketchup was a good example not because it has sugar in it, but because over time the amount of sugar added to it has increased substantially. You see once HFCS became widely available, they started using it as well as sugar. So today's ketchup from a Heinz and other brands is much sweeter than it used to be.
http://www.heinzketchup.com/Products/Heinz Ketchup 32oz
No sugar in it, only hfcs, a tiny bit more total sugars than the one I calculated the amount of added sugar for where it was below 1 gram per serving.
Ah, but that's only one line of Heinz ketchup and it's recipe today. I was talking about the recipe overvtime and all their ketchups. If you look. You'll see that today their simply ketchup and organic ketchup lines use sugar not HFCS. Too, Heinz doubled the sugar content in all their ketchups in 1970. They later switched to adding HFCS in various levels over the years...as HFCS got cheaper than sugar the amount of HFCS vs sugar ratio increased until recently earlier THIS year they made their regular line of ketchup sweetened entirely with HFCS.
Does it really matter if they doubled their added sugar in 1970 if it went from half a gram per serving to one gram per serving?10 -
strawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of sugar-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
I really don't think it's common to put enormous amounts of ketchup on meat (ketchup isn't really my sauce of choice for meat anyway, although I guess the current US president is a fan of that combination). But I admit I dislike ketchup. In any case, it IS sweet, and even if someone didn't read the label (and I always have read labels), they'd probably check the calories. I used to have a friend who would go on about how ketchup is great, because low cal--and it is pretty low cal--and presumably she paid attention to serving size if her reason for liking it was that it was lower calorie (this friend was extremely thin).
Like ketchup, BBQ is another that normally has added sugar and pretty obviously so.
The claims about sugar in those foods are misleading, though, because they ignore the fact that some is inherent sugar (anything with tomatoes is going to have a certain amount of sugar--I have a homemade pasta sauce in my recipe box with 7 grams of sugar even though it's a meat sauce, because I also use tomatoes and lots of vegetables, no added sugar).
I found a breakdown of sources of sugar in the diet in the UK (looks very similar to what it would be in the US), and the percentage from savory items (the so-called hidden sugars) is quite low.
Interestingly I find that when most people "want something sweet" as you mentioned, they don't go to items where sugar alone is the main ingredient (unless they want fruit or a drink). They go to sugar/fat combinations. The current obsession with sugar as the one and only villain is way over the top (and I say this even though I eat very little added sugar personally).6 -
strawberrysnap wrote: »
Different opinions I guess, I personally eat ketchup with virtually everything and avoid salt but I appreciate the clarity thank youstrawberrysnap wrote: »Guys I get everyone's point but I was trying to state sugar isn't normally what someone thinks of when they think of ketchup-idk about you guys but personally one tablespoon of ketchup is not satisfactory for me when eating meat for example so it adds up without realising
But some of us do think "sugar" the moment a tiny drop of that stuff touches our tongues. It's one of the reasons I don't like it.
When it comes to meat, I'd rather just salt it or add spices like garlic, chili, or curry ... or several others depending on what I'm making.
Normal ketchup has salt in it.6
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