I am from a family of sweet teeth

I am from a family of sweet teeth

Some people’s weaknesses are crisps or sandwiches—but not us. Going to my grandma’s house where every table has a sweet bowl (let me tell you, there are a lot of tables) turns into a game of who can resist the longest. In true grandma style—telling us we ‘need to eat up,’ and placing a bowl of goodies in front of us—we all give in within the first five minutes.

I could eat sweets, chocolates, biscuits and cakes all day long—and the more I eat, the more I want.

Taking you back a few years, I started becoming more aware of the food I was putting into my body. Why? I guess I began going to the gym more regularly and feasting on sweet foods was kind of defeating the object. Over some time, I managed to almost completely cut out sugar—or so I thought.

After around four days, I wasn’t having the same cravings. This interested me more. The fact that I had such a strong craving for something—it was like an addiction, and surely that cannot be good for you.

Type ‘sugar danger’ into Google and the results are scary.

No longer was I having chocolate and sweets, the things I perceived to be the foods to cut—but it turned out I had only scratched the surface.

Once the treats were eradicated, I began checking labels of the food I ate. This astonished me much more than the differences I had noticed reducing my initial sugar.

I had a look around the supermarket and could barely find anything without sugar in it. How many of us are eating foods we assume are low in sugar, without understanding how much we are consuming?

The main product I cut out completely from that day was flavoured yoghurt. You always see products branded as 0 percent fat—but it turns out, you might want to be going for the full fat options, as the reduction in fat is more than made up for in sugar. The 0 percent fat vanilla Onken includes 20g of sugar per 150g serving. 20 grams! That’s four teaspoons. Another product perceived as a ‘healthy’ breakfast item is granola. There are low sugar alternatives now, but if you’re partial to Jordan’s super fruity granola, that’s 18.2g of sugar per serving.

With some yoghurt, you’d be consuming an astonishing 38.2g of sugar in your breakfast alone. Writing this baffles me all over again.

According to the NHS, you shouldn’t be having more than about 30g of sugar a day.

Fast forward to the current day, and I’d become slightly obsessed with label reading, and wouldn’t even eat natural yoghurt with 4g of sugar in it. My diet became very ‘clean,’ but I can say it is not quite that good now.

For the most part, I avoid sugary foods, but I do still treat myself. I guess there is a reason why there is a ‘sugar epidemic’—it’s too damn tasty.

As regularly said, it is all about moderation. Don’t cut everything out, but maybe start checking those labels and cut out some foods with extra unneeded sugar. The difference in making a salad to buying a salad full of sugary dressing will make you gasp—plus you’ll save money. It’s a win-win.