sugar shockers in times article

[ihatethecold]

i was reading an article on diabetes at the weekend in the sat supplement.
it listed some items of food and the amount of teaspoons of sugar.

jar of Dolmio 10 teaspoons ???
McDonalds milkshake 20 teaspoons!!

i do understand the milkshake but Dolmio sauce???

glass of Tropicana 4 teaspoons.

There were many more that i was gobsmacked by.

i wish the labeling was clearer. it would change my purchases.
i try to be conscious with my buying but all this hidden sugar worries me.

SoupDragon, coke is very useful for diabetics. It brings the blood sugar up really fast when they're hypo . Pure unadulterated lifesaving crap.

Dolmio sauce is made of tomatoes mainly isn't it? Tomato is a fruit. Fruit has shedloads of sugar. It's not really that surprising.

I followed a low-carb diet for years and one thing it did was make me aware of the sugar content of so many normal foods. Things that were seen as healthy. It isn't a bad thing per se - unless of course you're diabetic.

This is why I make everything possible from scratch. Then I know exactly what's in it.

But as has been said -- food labelling is really very clear now. If you choose to ignore it, that's up to you. But the labelling cannot really be blamed.

"It brings the blood sugar up really fast when they're hypo"

I wonder why...? :o

Diabetic man my dad used to work with used apple juice or a Mars bar when he needed sugar fast.

I make my own tomatoes sauce for pasta, pizza etc. I also add a bit of sugar as it helps bring out the flavour of the tomatoes. My kids also drink fruit juice, watered down. Sugar, IMO, is much better in moderation thn all the processed crap they put in dilhuting juice, sugar free products etc.

DS2 is diabetic. Mars bars aren't great for fast sugar cos they have fat in them, and fat slows things down in the stomach. Apple juice is what we use and it is good but it is fruit sugar - not the fastest. Something to do with the fizz in Coke that makes it hit the blood faster, not sure why. I know someone whose baby was diabetic from birth, and she taught her to like coke as a toddler so she could give it to her in emergencies. They get evil looks when treating hypos that way in public!

The sugar in the dolmio sauce will come from the tomatoes as much as adding - so those of you who make your own sauce will still have a sauce that has lots of sugar in it. Tomatoes have lots of sugar so you cannot avoid it. Sugar is not BAD! Excess calories are bad, sweetened fizzy drinks provide a way to get extra calories very easily, but it's that not the sugar which is the problem. Worrying about the sugar in tomatoes is ludicrous, the starch in potato will end up in the body just the same, outside things like insulin sensitivity and similar the end result in the body of starch and sugar is the same.

There was a study done in the 1970's a group ate nothing but fruit and nuts for months, they had huge percentage of their calories from sugar - it wasn't a healthy diet long term (lack of calcium, lack of iron for example) but none of them put on weight, they all maintained or lost.

Avoiding excess calories from fizzy drinks or loads of fruit juice is a good idea - avoiding the sugar in your meals - a little obsessive and not really productive if you switch the calories you need to survive into other things.

Yessoupdragon there seems to be a lot of confusion about naturally occurring fruit sugars IMO purposely initiated by the food industry so one can pretend when drinking a Mcd's milkshake containing 20tsps of sugar that it's just the same as a fruit juice! [sceptical]

Fruit juice may contain healthy stuff, but the sugar will enter your bloodstream very fast, so better to have just one small glass per day.

High sugar foods are less damaging when consumed with fat. (not suggesting donuts or anything yummy like that) but fruit with full-fat greek yoghurt, or cream

If you drink a small pineapple or apricot juice before a meal it helps with the digestion of it. Probably the fruit itself is better though for blood sugar levels.