Sugar in diet thread - am I alone?!

[DocCrumpet]

Not trying to do a TAAT more just that since reading a thread the other day where a staggering majority (atleast at the point I read it) did not eat any refined sugar or very small amounts.

It's left me feeling a bit weird about my diet. I'm not overweight at all but am I being more unhealthy than I realise?

Breakfast most days is two crumpets with jam and a cup of tea with 2 sugars, glass of orange juice or apple juice. Lunch I'll usually have a folded flatbread with onions, salad, cheese, chilli jam. Dinners vary and we do make everything ourselves, as in make our own chips out of potatoes, make our own sauces for pastas and curries etc and we don't add sugar in them but we eat a lot of pizza, pasta, curries, stir fries, burgers with caramelised onions, roast dinners etc.

I'll have a couple of biscuits or chocolate a few times a week. I drink a lot of water but do also have a glass or two of lemonade most evenings. Occasional pack of sweets or chocolate or popcorn in an evening.

I kind of thought I was relatively normal?! But now I feel like I'm being really unhealthy and I'm questioning myself when I put jam on crumpets or chilli jam in my flatbreads or caramelise my onions.. do I need to cut back?!

I eat a lot of sugar. I also eat a lot of vegetables. Yesterday I had 2 chocolate biscuits int he afternoon then rather a lot of M&S merry Christmas munch after supper.

The day before I ate half a giant cookie (shared with DH) and a Gu pudding after lunch.

Both days I had toast with marmalade 🤷‍♀️

I was a healthy weight with a reasonable diet and felt perfectly fine. Didn't stop me from having a very high blood glucose reading and ending up in a spiral of issues when I tried to sort it.

I overdid it to start with and it didn't suit me, I'm now on an even keel on low carb and no direct sugar but I no longer worry about eating an apple or having some onions on my burger. I will occasionally have a bit of stevia in things such as homemade granola bars or making a lemon sauce or similar but I no longer have a sweet tooth as such. I'll have some 90% dark chocolate sometimes.

Health though keeps me on the straight and narrow really but I try not to overly focus and count every carb as that was mainlining to an eating disorder.

If I'm having carbs I try to eat them with fat to help slow down absorbtion and also eat wholegrain as much as possible.

Its only a problem, if its a problem

Me personally I react badly to sugars in general and that includes in some carbohydrate foods like bread, rice, even oats etc although I do eat oats for fibre

It prompts cravings in me. But if that doesnt apply to you an dyour health is good, theres nothing to change

I bought a special low sugar syrup thing that I thought would be good on porridge or protein pancakes. Turns out it has more carbs than the teaspoon of jam I occasionally chuck into my porridge and that at least has had some contact with fruit.

I've learned to not sweat the small stuff and that the occasional bit of ketchup or whatever is fine in the grand scheme of life. I'm not mainlining syrup.

If I ate like you I’d be diabetic in a month.

I can’t eat carbs (sugar and starch) because my body can’t tolerate them. That means that I get blood sugar issues like feeling shaky and hangry.

Id balloon. I lost 8 stone when I went low carb and it would go back on very quickly.

We all eat too much sugar (all carbs are sugar) and some of us manifest that as diabetes others as heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune diseases etc.

The problem is it’s addictive and when you try to take the drug off the addict you get rage. Just wait and see how many people quote me to tell me I’m wrong.

I should ditch the liquid sugar (drinks, juice, tea) if I were you if only for the sake of your teeth. Have you seen the price of dentistry these days?

If you want to make small changes, the easiest thing to give up is sugar in tea. After a week or two you won't miss it. And maybe replace the breakfast crumpets with eggs or porridge.

Idk, I’m overweight so can’t exactly get on any high horse but that sounds like a lot of sugar to me. I didn’t think people still put sugar in tea nowadays and I would consider jam, juice and fizzy drinks (other than sparkling water) occasional treats rather than for everyday consumption. I also avoid eating products from white flour every day, more like a couple of times a month, likewise chocolate.

So true. And FWIW I eat sugar - I'm trying my best to cut it out as much as I can but it's hard as a T1 diabetic. These threads always attract comments like "There are so many people with EDs on MN" and "We need balance". I'm not even judging people for eating it - I know it's hard to resist, but people should acknowledge that it isn't good for us and for the most part we don't need it.

I kind of thought I was relatively normal?! On a population level, you probably are somewhere around normal. It may be false to assume that’s a good thing!

Am I being more unhealthy than I realise? Probably. Unless you’re doing a high volume of higher-intensity exercise, I’d try to keep added sugars to a minimum. Whilst there’s a lot of nuance around the subject of sugar intake, you could probably get rid of the juice, lemonade and not add to tea to start (reducing the fructose load is priority number 1).

A longer answer to how much sugar depends on context: amount of movement, intensity of movement, what you substitute the sugar with etc etc etc. For example, on hard training days, I can require up to 500g of carbs, a fair amount of which can be made up of added sugar, whereas on easier days I might stay under 80g and none of that would be added sugar.

I'd say that's quite a lot of sugar but looking at what people have in their shopping trolleys I wouldn't say it's unusual.

I'm heading towards 60 so I've definitely been more considered about what I eat for the last few years but I gave up sugar in hot drinks when I was 18 (when I started FT work in an office where I drank at least 4 cups of coffee a day at work alone with 2 sugars in each).
I don't drink fizzy drinks or fruit juice just coffee, tea/peppermint tea or water. I have a chocolate biscuit 2 or 3 times a week. Meals are home cooked, like yours, so I control the ingredients. I do drink alcohol at the weekends. Cake is a very occasional treat (usually when I'm out for coffee). Breakfast is porridge with berries in. Lunch usually soup/ salad / a sandwich.

I'm sure you can find an online calculator to work out how much sugar you are consuming versus the RDA and make some easy swaps to cut down. I know too many people with Type 2 diabetes who are in total denial about what the effects of this disease could mean for them. I'm trying hard not to join them - but I'm not obsessive about it. If I want cake/chocolate I will have it. It's just not part of my daily diet.

I reckon your diet is pretty normal.
I personally don't have sugar in tea and coffee but that's because I prefer it like that and don't drink bottled juice as I have a juicer, everything else is just like our family.

I kind of thought I was relatively normal?! On a population level, you probably are somewhere around normal. It may be false to assume that’s a good thing!

Really good point - there is a big difference between a normal (in the sense of common/standard) and a healthy diet!

Really good point - there is a big difference between a normal (in the sense of common/standard) and a healthy diet!

I think you can apply this to other lifestyle factors as well. How much alcohol the everage person drinks as opposed to how much we should drink and the oft repeated average dress size is a 16, which for most people would make them overweight.

Normalising something doesn't mean it is OK.

I think if you have always eaten like that and you are not overweight I wouldn’t worry. I have yo-yo dieted my whole life and I think that is why I wouldn’t be able to look at a crumpet without putting on weight. I think I eat less than you but am obese. You are getting lots of vegetables and a variety of food. The best thing is not overthink your diet in my view as I have screwed up my metabolism doing that.

Thanks. I definitely could eat less sugar, I think I just never really thought I needed to and didn't feel it was excessive! Until reading that other thread and thinking oh god! 😂

I'm worried about my kids diets too now, I have a 11 month old and a 4 year old old who eat loads of jam on toast, jam crumpets, cheesy pasta, ham and cheese toasties, breadsticks, yoghurts and my 4 year old has a small chocolate (fudge/Milky Way type thing) or a packet of sweets a couple of times a week. They eat shed loads of fruit, cucumber, sweetcorn, broccoli and cauliflower but there is a lot of what people in the other thread mentioned as really sugary foods that I never really thought of as such like bread and crumpets and jam etc!

It is a ‘normal’ UK diet and it is high in sugar.

Interesting, because your experience is pretty much the same as mine after cutting the carbs - bread and potatoes mainly. Normally at this time of year I'd be inhaling mince pies but find I can take or leave them - ditto sweet biscuits and crumpets or desserts. And like you have shed half a stone without much effort.

Yes, it’s like all the emotion around them has gone? I used to want those carby things really strongly and feel a bit hard done by 😂if I couldn’t have them, but now - almost nothing!

Exactly the feeling. I used to put a couple of packets of mince pies in the freezer for the post Xmas treats, but not bothering this year.

Unfortunately the same 'can't be bothered now' seems to have happened with wine.....😭

Your breakfast is:

Crumpets = carbohydrate, converts to glucose = sugar.
Jam = fructose and sucrose = sugar.
Tea with milk & sugar = lactose & sucrose = sugar.
Orange or apple juice = fructose = sugar.

Every single item has sugar in it one way or another, apart from the teabag and water, and the teabag will have caffeine in it.
Where's the protein?

Perhaps that puts it into context, and small changes make a big difference. If you have some protein with breakfast, an egg or beans on toast maybe, you will feel fuller for longer, and your blood sugar won't take a dive before lunch and make you want a snack.

Sorry but that breakfast is horrific. You really need to change that and it will be a big improvement. Juice is totally pointless, have some fruit with natural yoghurt and muesli and try and cut down the sugar in your tea.

You sound totally normal.
Doesn't mean your diet couldn’t be more healthy, but nobody lives forever and we all die of something. I’d like to enjoy life’s pleasures before I shuffle off this mortal coil and that means the occasional cheesecake!
In my experience the people who truly care about this are rather boring with nothing better to obsess about.

I’d really cut out the jam for the kids, it has zero nutrition and it’s awful for their teeth. Have marmite or peanut butter instead. And not being rude but I don’t know how you did realise that crumpets and jam are high in sugar. But the nutrition eduction in the UK is awful.

I think that's a lot of sugar for both you and your children. Sorry!