Blended fruit and syns

[SchnizelVonKrumm]

I saw this article a while back and was reminded of it recently in a conversation with a colleague about SW.

There are certainly plenty of faults with SW/misunderstandings of what the plan is, and a common criticism is that fruit is (usually) free unless blended/pureed, in which case it has syns. People often faux-naively ask "HoW cOmE fruit is MaGicAlLy woRsE when in a SmoOtHiE?"

SW explains this, but so does this article about baby food:

"Fruit pouches marketed as having "no added sugar" containing about four teaspoons of so-called "free sugars" (created when fruit is blended) - something that experts say is "intentionally misleading"

The NHS says an infant should have as little sugar as possible, and that a one-year-old child should have no more than 10g of free sugars a day.

Free sugars occur when fruit is pureed, as is the case with the pouches. Eating pieces of fresh fruit is much better for children."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8jd3ydzd0o

Just thought this was interesting as it supports the rationale behind synning pureed fruit.

Do you work for them?

It's common sense. You could easily drink 5 oranges 3 apples and 3 bananas, a punnet of strawberries in a drink easily and it wouldn't fill you up but you couldn't eat all that fruit in one sitting without feeling uncomfortablly full.

It’s exactly as @SunflowerLifehas explained it. It’s to stop over eating. Nothing to do with ‘free sugars’. Common sense. It’s really not that difficult to understand.

Can't it be a bit of both? Anyway, I agree it's common sense, but that isn't as common as you might think.

(To the pp above, no I don't work for SW. As I said in my OP, there are many faults with the plan/people's interpretation of it, I just find it odd that people seem to fixate on this one. I was just making an observation. On a public chat forum.)

Anything that refers to any food as “syn” isn’t a healthy way to be approaching food.

I 🙄 at SW's explanation of the term. I just ignore snd call them points.

Syn is short for Synergy, as in food synergy. There has been a lot of research into food synergy over the years. Not just by Slimming World.
No, I don’t work for them, or follow the plan but people should really do some research!
have a read of the autobiography too, people might learn something.

Be careful, you'll call all the naysayers. I see a trickle have already arrived.

I have never had a problem with the premise that blending up fruit to drink is almost certain to see you ingest higher calories than you would have by eating each piece of fruit separately. It's obvious.

It's also common sense that baking and eating a single apple is no different to eating an uncooked one, so I never synned that and enjoyed a regular baked apple for pudding!

But blending a couple of bananas, punnet of strawberries, an apple, a punnet of blueberries and calling it breakfast is only reasonable if you would have eaten all that fruit in one sitting IMO.

If you were to blend up a banana, a handful of strawberries and nothing else really added, that seems perfectly sensible to me.

SW was always abused by the morons who made lasagne sheet crisps and called them "free". Or who ate a dozen yoghurts and so on. This was never within the guidelines for SW, and I'm not sure people can blame the brand for people's behaviour.

The basic premise of the SW diet was good - 1/3 plate lean protein, 1/3 plate vegetables or fruit, 1/3 plate carbs. That's a good, healthy, balanced meal. Limiting fats and sugars and encouraging you to measure them whilst you fill up on low fat, high satiety foods is a perfectly reasonable diet.

In the early days of Slimming World they definitely used to be called sins with an "i".

Haha this is some bullshit they came away with a few years back. People didn’t like the idea of ‘sins’ so SW tried to backtrack. We all know exactly what it means.

I haven’t perfected my weight or my eating but the way I see it is this. It’s common sense that you would have more fruit and therefore sugar in a smoothie than you would if you were eating fruit as it’s condensed, easy to swallow etc. However, if you’re someone that would eat 2 slices of white processed bread with jam or a fried breakfast sandwich if you didn’t have the smoothie then surely something that is grown in the ground has got to be a healthier option? If a smoothie fills you up for a couple of hours and stops you reaching for the biscuit tin then I say go for it. But then I don’t think much of the weight loss programmes that have points and syns anyway, they work for some but I think they do encourage some disordered eating habits (not for everyone of course).

was always abused by the morons who made lasagne sheet crisps and called them "free". Or who ate a dozen yoghurts and so on. This was never within the guidelines for SW, and I'm not sure people can blame the brand for people's behaviour.

Tbf this is a ckear cheat SW says in all the books to eat a food as it's meant to be eaten. So lasagna sheets in a lasagna. And in moderation". Has been in every book since I first went in 2001.

I also have an original card from Margaret's very first set of consultant led groups that mentions Syns and explains Synergy so I'm fairly confident that wasn't changed

Healthier doesn't equate to weightloss though. And the point of SW is weightloss. It's also not teaching good longterm eating habits.

For example: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23553/basic-fruit-smoothie/

That whole recipe contains 480 calories and 80g of sugar.

Two slices of toast and jam is around 260 calories and 40g sugar (or thereabouts).

https://www.nutritionix.com/food/toast-and-jam

And neither is liable to keep you full till lunchtime

Anyone with any idea knows its protein and fibre that fills you - and SW promotes that - hence keep away from the blended fruits

I shared in group that I prefer not to have my heathy extra B - wholemeal bread, certain high fibre cereals etc in the morning because I sugar spike and am hungry then all day. I shared that my first meal of the day was protein - be it a couple of kippers and poached eggs and veg, cottage cheese and tinned fish or chopped fruits , preferring to keep my carb ( be it cereal or bread ) till later in the day Two others heard that and changed their diets about - skipped the carb in the morning and got good loses this week

SW DOES promote healthy eating and portion sizes and does teach long term habits - if you follow the plan - scratch cook, dump the UPFs, switch to wholemeal, cut the carbs, go easy on the dairy and get as much protein and fibre into that you can

I would rarely ever eat a syn. There's no real need to, not if you cook from scratch. Syns to me are booze , chocolate and crisps , which we all know needs moderation. I can go a week and a syn hasn't showed in my food diet, because I follow the plan of cooking from scratch, and avoid the UPFs - which every flipping "expert" out there advises yet SW get the slating

Ive never bought a hifi bar, a ready meal or a bottle of frylite in 28 months that Ive been going, In that time I paid for 10 months - till I got the weight off. Now I go to keep focussed and the weight off