The change for life reduce sugar campaign is irritating me

[Hurr1cane]

Fair enough change sugary cereals for less sugary ones like porridge, but it depends what type of porridge clearly.

Fair enough change chocolate bars for rice cakes... But again... It depends what type, some are full of salt and sugar.

But change cordial for sugar free cordial? Really? I make an effort to make sure I only buy cordial with sugar in and not asphartemine, horrible stuff that sends DS completely high. But to be honest I'd much rather replace with watered down fruit juice or even just water, the cordial is only used for a treat or when he's poorly and I need to get fluids down him, but I never ever use sugar free.

It just seems like pointless, vague, bad advice, and yes all children in DSs school were given the full packs.

I'm probably being unreasonable because of how badly DS reacts to that particular sweetner, but the pharmacist tells me that isn't a rare thing at all, and the sweetner is in all the calpol type medicines instead of sugar, which means DS is either poorly and having seizures, or completely high and giving himself seizures, so the advice for sugar free cordial really pissed me off.

I am being aren't I?

Oh don't get me started or I'll go full quinoa on you. Oops too late
Tonight I made DD some choc brownies without sugar (used other sweeteners) and I thought, these are ok actually! I'm on a gluten-free, low sugar, dairy free diet and despise artificial crap anyway so needed an excuse to stop buying ready made healthier, but still junk food like cakes, snacks and biscuits. Cheaper too.

Everything in "moderation" is the way to go, always has been, always will be. It's not rocket science.

Sunny thanks! I guess as I tend to shop in Aldi I don't see those brands ( although I've never heard of rocks, what's that?) I have a bottle of the roses lime cordial, but only I drink it!

There is nothing wrong with butter
There is nothing wrong with sugar
There is nothing wrong with fat

There is however something very wrong with "artificial"

Wow, enlightened people I'm overjoyed to not be the only person on a forum who thinks Monsanto [the manufacturer of aspartame] doesn't have the health of our nation as one of its priorities.

Not only is the stuff a neurotoxin, do look around and find out how remarkably fast it was approved by the FDA, who approved it and then who walked into top jobs at Monsanto.
There was enough of a fuss at the time for there to be an investigation, but of course no conflicts of interest were found, just coincidences.
www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-rumsfeld-and-the-s_b_805581.html

Kirk1 Sainsburys own brand high juice squash doesn't contain artificial sweeteners, either. expat, have a round of applause :).

Rocks is lovely I used to buy it in Waitrose back when I was middle class.
www.rocksorganic.com/
i buy the Lime Cordial for myself too!! the kids really don't like it, hooray!

there is really no point in harking back to a time 70 years ago I'm not that fecking old!
I'm not talking about people living in poverty, or dangerous industries or the social injustices of the past.This was the 60s and 70s, we were a normal working class family, but food was fresh, well cooked and not filled with artificial flavouring and sweetners. It's about balance and making food and attitudes to food (from producers as well as consumers) healthier.

Sweeteners are foul. They taste as artificial as they are. Even cleaning my teeth leaves an unpleasant after taste from the sweeteners in it.

I agree with many points already made on this thread, and plan to continue ignoring c4lifes sponsored scaremongering.

I always bang on about this on mn but years ago when ds was small, he wouldn't make eye contact with us. (He has mild asd)

This went on for months and was incredibly distressing. I started experimenting with changes in his duet, noticed he was asking for more and more squash, took sugar free squash out of his diet and whoosh - full eye contact came back within 48 hours and I saw rapid language improvement from that point.

True story. We've never had anything with aspartame near him since.

To say I hate the campaign to get people on sugar free stuff is an understatement

Diet, not duet. That would have been odd.

Interesting that Ribena doesn't have aspartame, because it's the only cordial I can drink which doesn't taste disgusting and make me feel bad. I swear I can taste the chemicals in Muller Lights too. I couldn't in the past, but since I cut back on artificial stuff now I really can.

[Blanklook] I never realised Monsanto were behind aspartame! I know of them because they have impoverished vast swathes of South American crop farmers with their unethical business practices. They are bad all round then.

Whoops, bold fail. Blanklook

The artificial crap is sometimes cheaper than sugar, too, so manufacturers use it in addition to sugar. You have to keep reading labels, because often products you knew to be free of them switch to containing them + sugar. Oasis, Lilt and Sprite (or it might have been 7Up) used to be free from them.

That's right about lilt etc., they used to be OK now they are not.

I have found that lot's of people, my parents and inlaws included seem to think that when a drink says 'sugar free' that it is naturally sweet and they just didn't add any sugar at all to the drink or anything artificial when it was made.
When I think of I, my mil also thinks that Nutella only contains a glass of milk, cocoa and some nuts or whatever it says on the advert, she seems to think they just mixed those 3 things up and put them in a jar.

my SM is an intelligent woman but she has not connected at least two people in her house with mental health problems and them swilking back pints of 'no added sugar' squash.

It's such a shame. The campaign has a good opportunity to make a real difference but it's ruined by dodgy info and being under the thumb of big businesses.

Well at least I know I'm not being completely unreasonable thanks.

I threw the change 4 life pack in the kitchen bin with feeling and flounced off. That was probably the highlight of my day, which says a lot about how interesting my life is

expatinscotland Mon 19-Jan-15 20:56:53

The artificial crap is sometimes cheaper than sugar, too, so manufacturers use it in addition to sugar. You have to keep reading labels, because often products you knew to be free of them switch to containing them + sugar. Oasis, Lilt and Sprite (or it might have been 7Up) used to be free from them.

This thread has made me feel relieved. Someone I know insists on giving her toddler diet coke "coz it's healthier".
No.

I consider myself lucky that I can't abide the taste of aspartame, to me it's unpleasant and it lingers for hours afterwards, so it's been banned in my household for decades.

What upsets me the most is when it comes to the health of the nation, all of the information from research to advice is never sifted through a 'what is genuinely good for the consumers' health' filter, it's only ever spun as "facts" to make the population want to buy it because they believe it's good for them, [like the low fat con over the last 20 or more years] when the reality is they are not buying healthy food at all.

OFF TOPIC info for LetticeKnollys unfortunately it's not just SA, look at Canada and India for starters and check out their infertile seeds and saving seed for the next year's crop policy and the link to farmers' suicide rates when they cannot afford to either buy fertile seed or defend themselves from prosecution for saving seed from their own crops.
Also in Monsanto's remit is "promoting" GM food, in the US they are voting state by state to decide whether their foods should be labelled GM [Yes vote] or not labelled so no-one knows if they are eating GM or not [No vote] Guess which company pours a fortune into the No campaign?
And why do we never hear about this, being as it's a global event, I wonder?
www.march-against-monsanto.com/

You are totally NBU! I gave up Diet Coke over Christmas and had a two week headache. Now I feel great!

it is a truly horrible flavour and smell - it beats me how people stand it, I know if there is aspartame in a drink as soon as someone snaps the can open.

On Christmas Day I thought I'd treat myself to a can of gin and tonic, took one mouthful, spat it out into sink and realised it was flecking slimline. The can and its companion in the fridge were immediately emptied down the drain. Utterly gross. It's so bitter.

Lidl do proper sugar in cordial and yoghurt.

I'd much rather be honest and have the more natural form of food. Yes, I'll have a red label Coke, but at least I'm not deluding myself that it's a healthy choice. On the occasions that I have it, at least I know I'm messing around with my blood sugars.

The other thing I don't understand is milk. 4% fat is generally regarded as low fat, which is what regular milk is anyway. So how much difference does it make cutting to 2 or 1% make really? Well, other than losing some useful micronutrients from the missing fat.