Sugar in food

Lemon and honey and whisky is best (hot toddy) [innocent look]

Thank you (live and learn)

dd1 keeps mentioning cinnamon + honey + ???did she say lemon? as being good for colds

margaret, just put double square brackets around the link text xyzxyz

I mix a pack of cinnamon with some sugar in a bowl and use 1 teaspoon on my porridge every morning- none if tea or coffee or practically anything else- apart from 2 squares of 70% Lindt chocolate in the evening. Try to avoid most processed or refined food.

Not sure that a teaspoon of ordinary sugar added to a bowl of porridge would be bad (
I usually slice up a banana on mine,, no sugar, occasionally honey).

Is it actual sugar in all these products or the more dangerous corn syrup

Did you see this programme?
http:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18393391

Sorry, need to be able to put in a link properly, need some help!

Healthier than what, djen?

thanks for the information about sugar in tinned tomatoes, I feel relieved as they're a staple here.

Just had an email from www.sumofus.org
Their latest campaign is to stop companies like Coca Cola and Nestle claiming that their products are healthier because they contain fructose. A new EU food law, apparently.
Thought some of you might want to sign up to it. I have.

It will not make any difference, Merlot.
One medium raw tomato has 2.6 grams of carbohydrate in the form of sugar.

but it is not added sugar merlot

I've been making soup for the freezer this morning and I normally use my own frozen tomato pulp for minestrone but at this time of the year I've usually run out. I read the sugar content on a tin of chopped tomatoes and was amazed that the amount was 5.6g for half a tin. That's the same as a small serving of Aldi's crunchy Pecan and Maple cereal

I must grow more tomatoes this year!!!!

My gandson has a mini mars bar when he get sin from school; someone had eaten the last of the mini bars so I'd bought some proper size ones and cut a bit off and put the remains in the fridge. Had no desire to eat it at all till last night and then it started sending out 'eat me' signals [see, it was ALL the fault of the chocolate and I was a helpless victim ].

The question is tegan how did it get into the house in the first place?
The other question is - remains??? Respect. There would never be chocolate remains in my house, which is why it is banned from crossing the threshold.
Yes ariadne that is basically what happens - starches and sugars get broken down into glucose (dextrose) which is then either used or stored in the liver as glycogen. For the (much) longer answer try reading the Fructose entry in Wikipedia - it seems that fructose is a bit of a complicated law unto itself. And the whole biochemistry thing is incredibly complicated, including how those extra calories turn into fat (about 6 years of study beyond o level complicated)
I think the essence is that refined sugars - the crystalline stuff (whatever the colour) is quicker and easier to digest, hits the insulin system faster and harder and will tend to cause all sorts of knock on ill effects. Honeys, syrups etc behave in the same way. So foods with added sugars are not good for you. They disrupt your appetite and your metabolism.
The carbohydrates we can cope with are the ones in whole fruits, grains like porridge etc - these will give us the energy we need without the ill effects.

Thinking back hazily to "O" level Biology - don't carbs conver to sugar in the digestive process? I seem to remember an enzyme in saliva (ptyalin?) which begins said process. But am ready to be corrected - it was 50 odd years ago!

I see there's a programme about added sugar on the TV this evening...

Tegan - I munched my way through a bag of twix chocs yesterday evening. My excuse, well back from watching 12 years a slave, and feeling the need of some comfort. Onward and Upwards, it's the working week so I'll try and locate that bit of discipline I know is lurking somewhere

I've just ate the remains of a Mars Bar that was in the fridge [having eaten realy healthy food all weekend]. So annoyed with myself. It only took a nanosecond to eat as well; not worth it!

Mollie, I am also trying to cut down on sugar. I developed a sweeter tooth in my 50's, and these days, I love desserts, biscuits and chocolate. I cut out biscuits completely after the festive over indulgence left all my trousers feeling tight. I only eat cream over the festive period, and once it's over I honestly don't miss it.
I eat butter, not those processed spreads, but don't over do it. We get through lots of olive oil which we cook with, and use with salads.

I treat myself to manuka honey, which I only use on my morning bowl of porridge and fruit. I tell myself it's good for me, and it is so delicious can one spoon full a day cause harm? I have also given up muesli, because even if you buy the no added sugar ones, the sugar content is high.

We usually cook from scratch, don't use salt and the only things I put brown sugar in are fruit cakes. No sugar in drinks for 45 years now. I definitely notice weight gain round my middle if I over indulge. I'm also trying hard (!) not to eat a slice of cake except on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I stopped eating any processed foods long ago, they were too scary. When you go to a restaurant, you can tell if they have been 'cheating' too. I buy things like biscuits for cheese, life is just too short for some things, but then you look at the amount of salt in them... None of us seem to ever need to go to the dentist, though.

If you read the labels on processed foods like Heinz soup and breakfast cereals and then weigh the amount of sugar per portion in each product, (put it in a bowl) you will get quite a shock at the end of the day when you actually see how much sugar you have consumed without realising it.

I try not to buy processed foods like biscuits, yogs etc but I do like to make a cake or two now and then.

Over Christmas I ate too many chocolates and it has been hard work to resist sweet temptation!

I agree it is sensible to eat a varied diet but in moderation... gosh if only I could keep to my own good advice! A bit of sugar will probably not do much harm but it is knowing where it is hidden!

I use maple syrup, but only a tsp. You get used to it. The alternative is to use a dsstsp of dried fruit, which is like eating a small bunch of grapes as well as the porridge, I suppose. I love cake, I love eating it (homemade) but I realised it was an addiction years ago. I would stop eating sugar and making cakes, then one slice pushed on me that it would have been rude to refuse, and I was off again. I think it's just as hard to give up as smoking.

I would quite like a standard teaspoon so that it is obvious. I think it was 10 teaspoons in a can of Coke. I don't drink it anyway but that would certainly put me off. In one report (not verified) it said that there are 44 in a large cinema serving!

I also found the following:

"A can of Heinz tomato soup contains the equivalent of four teaspoons of sugar while a mug of Cadbury’s drinking chocolate holds six teaspoonfuls. A Yeo Valley vanilla yoghurt contains five teaspoons of sugar."

The problem is that they all add into our diet and we are generally unaware of them.

Gracesgran processed food manufacturers are required by law to state the sugar content of their products on their packaging, so you can work out how much you're getting.

Siverfoxette and Mollie Although maple syrup contains traces of some minerals, vitamins and amino acids, it is mainly composed of varying proportions of sucrose, fructose, and glucose, depending on the grade of the syrup. If you add a dessert spoon of it to your porridge, that's probably going to be about 15grams of your daily sugar intake - as I said before, the RDA is 90grams, so whether it's a good idea to use it on your porridge depends on how much sugar you're consuming during the rest of the day.