Sugar in food

Thank you for acknowledging it Jane

Thank you for the link Atqui

I always have difficulty avoiding sugary food, brought up on home-made cakes, pastries, puddings ...... . Trying hard but you do need more calories in the winter surely?

The trouble is that we would have to screen of a large area of the living-room to cut off the stairs that go up through two quarter turns, French style.
I feel I should try and get the thread back on track by saying that at least we don't need to eat sugary food to keep warm...
I never have a problem avoiding sugary food normally, but oh the pastries in Turin this weekend! Sweet focaccia is just divine.

We also live in a very old rambling stone house Mamie (from 1587) 90cm thick limestone walls + plaster, and insulation and cladding for some rooms. We have a belter of a large granit wood burner in the kitchen which keeps the whole of downstairs warm, and when it gets too hot, we open the kitchen door so heat can escape up. If you don't have any doors- then you will lose all the heat up. Not sure about the configuration of your house, but a friend of ours got a lined sail (as in sailing ...) made to fit in the gap where the stairs are to stop this from happening- maybe something to think about?

We live in the mountains, at 950m (about 3600ft)- so our Summers are warm during the day, but always cooler at night- and we just close the wooden shuttters and leave windows wide opened- if it is too hot still- we open the door to the barn at the back to create air movement. Those big stone walls seem to keep the house warm in winter, and cool in Summer.

The heat definitely rises because the stairs are open in the sitting room. This is great in winter because the log-burner heats the whole of the main part of the house. In summer it doesn't help. South-facing window shuttered and anti-solar blind, arrow slits in north wall open all the time. No windows to east or west except veluxes in the sides of the roof (below the boarded, insulated attic bit) which have high-quality blinds that really don't seem to let any heat in.
Space between ceiling and bedroom floor has thick layer of centuries of dirt, grain and mice (little mice with clogs on). Three foot thick stone walls, plus insulation, plus plasterboard.
Not a mansion, but an ancient, rambling old stone farmhouse. I suspect we won't solve it!

You need something like a solar powered fan to shift the air through that top floor maybe.
We are now envisaging a mansion with windows on all 4 sides... ?

Sounds to me as though you need insulation between the ground floor and the upstairs bedrooms. Can you insulate the ceilngs downstairs? Or the floors upstairs? Hang heavy curtains on the inside of the south walls and keep the south windows closed and covered in the heat of the day? Open windows on the north side and the east or west? (temperatures and air pressures are often different on different sides of the house, so a through draught is created)

Yes, Jess the loft is fully insulated. If we leave the south-facing window open, it is unbearable. It just seems as if all the heat in the house rises to the bedrooms.

Indeed Bags. I also know from the Daily Wail that immediately you cross the channel the heat is positively sub-tropical so nobody needs Winter Fuel Allowance.

mamie either the warm air rises up through the house and can't escape. Or your loft is getting hot. Or you have some south or west facing windows that are encouraging solar gain. If your loft insulated to full depth (270mm) then its not the loft. Maybe leaving all windows and doors fully open on top floor - have you tried that?

You'll have heard about Scotland's cool, damp climate, I suppose, mamie?

I've thick stone walls as well.

I've been invaded by a misguided pipistrelle.

Aaaarghhhh!!! To the visiting owls!

Shutters must be lovely though.

Oh we do all that Galen. Shutters and blinds actually. Still often gets up to 27 upstairs in summer. The cellar and lower ground floor are always cool, the middle level about right and the bedrooms are hot.
We also have small windows in the three foot stone walls on the north side that we can keep open all the time (apart from netting against visiting owls).

Just read this and am experimenting with posting links. Sorry if it's already been said!

lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/nutrition/a/fructosedangers.htm

Keep curtains and windows closed. My bedroom runs the full width of the house so I can get a through draft if I open them after it's cooled down.

Sorry, very off topic. I was musing on the sugar stuff this weekend as I watched lots of stick-thin Italians eating sugary pastries with their coffee. Maybe it is the glass of water that makes a difference?

How do people manage to keep their bedroom temperature so low in summer? Air conditioning? Ours is a nightmare to keep cool as the heat rises from the wood-burner in winter and it gets dreadfully hot in summer too. We have masses of insulation.

Mine about 17 all year. The downstairs is usually about 22C

Likewise, jura, except ours is about 12-13° in winter and 15-16 in summer.

Can't stand a heated bedroom- it's around 17C in ours in winter- and we have the window partially opened at night (with - lots outside..). Put me in a heated bedroom with window closed and I won't sleep, or wake up with massive headache.

Definition of a 1950's heated bedroom - temperature is 75+ outside and the sun's coming in that way. Ooh, and fresh white bread with Mum' homemade damson jam. (But we did get homegrown veg as well and I do take the point about the advert before anyone posts)

I would think the dried fruit is probably the worst, with concentrated sugar? But good for you so I eat it.