Can you keep to six teasps of sugar a day..

roseannie the protein story last week was completely overblown and only based on one bit of not very inspiring research.
I think bags it derives from the knowledge that some terminal cancers are incredibly calorie hungry. This is why terminal patients can experience dramatic weight loss - the cancer is greedily depriving the patient of nourishment.
But that really does not mean that sugar causes cancer or that sugars and carbohydrates encourage cancers to grow.
the phrase "sugar loves cancer" is used as a hook on a myriad questionable websites, some of them selling outright fraudulent "cancer cures"

That sugar and cancer story is weird. All carbohydrates break down to simple sugars (e.g. glucose) during digestion – that's how we utilise the energy in such foods – so how, exactly, does one avoid ALL sugars? It strikes me as a(nother) load of nonsense, as most advice about eating is nowadays. Yes, I do mean most.

I liked the sugar booklet merlot, (tho I only buy that paper on Saturday for the TV guide} mainly because it had pictures and was very clear. I do think life is becoming too complicated. Low - Sugar, carbs, fat, salt, protein? Not sure what's left!

very sceptical about the cancer feeding on sugar thing. The way in which cancer cells metabolise glucose is very complex and there is much to discover.
You'd have to keep patients on a zero carb diet if you wanted no sugar in the system. There are lots of "doctors" that have quirky/quacky ideas all around the world.

Margaret I have read too, the idea that tumours 'feed' on sugar, more specifically that sugar causes an inflammatory response in the body, which may then trigger a cell or cells to become cancerous. But I'm not sure how widely accepted that is.

I dothink it's a step too far to infer that sugar causes cancer, which is not one disease but many different ones, with different risk factors.

jane I watched a programm on German TV about sugar. Some doctors here have found that by cutting sugar out altogether starves cancers! Whether that means that eating sugar causes cancer or encourages cancer then that can take a long time to prove - think of the link between smoking and lung cancer which took 20 years at least.

Generally they think here in Germany that sugar is responsible for a lot of ill health. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression, it has not yet been proved but I called it the scare of the moment as you never know what or who is behind all these scares.

Oh Dear! The more I think about healthy eating the more I crave unhealthy stuff! My problem is that I like a lot of different foods..I could easily live on a healthy Mediterranean diet as I love the flavours but I cannot resist a cake if offered. I have stopped baking so much as I just eat what I make!!

I must eat far too much sugar though do not add it to anything (tea/coffee/cereal etc) but I have often had a homemade natural yogurt and fruit smoothie for breakfast trying to be healthy!! I occasionally enjoy a fruit juice, to say nothing about a glass of wine and I ate a chocolate croissant for breakfast..major fail!!( & I am not even thinking about the fat in that!) Lunch was salad with avocado (had to eat it before it went squishy!)

I love puddings but never make them unless entertaining but might be tempted when eating out! Oh no! I had a salted caramel ice cream at the theatre last night...I am doomed to being fat and horribly unhealthy!

jingle no! I just chop fresh fruit very finely or mash it

Jet lag?

Thanks anno and jess and Elegran
Yes you are right, I'm home now and have looked it up. [swot emoticon]
According to my source,
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon = 14grams =1/2 ounce
I think this must mean level measures.

So if the WHO is recommending 5 level teaspoons a day, then Beardie's breakfast is worse than I thought.

Margaret has anyone actually said eating sugar causes cancer?

As to fruit you should only eat as much fruit as you eat it in the raw state. Normally one orange is enough after you've peeled it and chewed away at all the pith etc. Drinking orange juice owhich has about 8 - 12 oranges in it or a fruit smoothie is just not a natural human thing to do.
As to causing cancer then to be honest the longer we live the more likely we will die of cancer or heart disease. Just as the body is made up of cells which divide, so eventually there will be some which are faulty. The body has a mechanism to cope with this but which can fail as we become older.
That is why the parts of the body which expand and retract are most prone to cancers.
Whether eating too much sugar causes cancer I regard it as 'Scare of the moment' I can live with 6 teaspoons sugar per day as we don't go in for factory made products for meals. I also know of real health freaks who got cancer.

Welcome back Jane. My breakfast is natural yoghurt with a small banana and 20 gms of Quaker Oat Crisps (2.2 gms sugar). Not sure how much sugar in a child-size banana. Never take sugar or milk in my tea. Most of my daily sugar is in the form of fruit but I don't eat as much of that as I used to. I only eat chocolate if it's offered to me - walk past the confectionery aisles nowadays.

5 grams to a teaspoon makes a Branson breakfast six teaspoons. No wonder there are so many large behinds on aircraft seats.

Welcome back. Not sure about the maths. How many grams to a teaspoon? Thought it was 5?
You are right about training palate. Fruit and Fibre cereal for instance tastes revoltingly sweet to me. It does have a fair bit of added sugar. Have just persuaded my DH (who is overweight) to give up consuming this as a late evening snack.
natural yoghurt with grapes is a better one.

I've just flown back from Florida.
Breakfast a la Richard Branson was
100ml orange juice - 10g sugar
Flapjack type breakfast bar -8g sugar
Blueberry muffin - 13g sugar
So that's 31g sugar, just over an ounce, at least 3 teaspoons and the day hasn't begun.
I have found though that since I've reduced my sugar intake, I no longer enjoy sweet things like I used to, they all seem very sickly now, so I do think it's possible to train your palate.

Scary! I don't know how I stand with this I don't add sugar to hot drinks. I rarely eat sweets or biscuits and I don't have a sweet tooth. I do have the odd biscuit and cake and slice of bread and jam. but not regularly.

I suppose if people who eat a massive quantity of sweet food can cut down on added sugar intake it will probably be better than not trying at all.
It would help to force manufacturers gradually reduce sugar in breakfast cereals and ready made sauces.
I think we should be careful not to get too hung up about sugar in fresh fruit and vegetables.
There are a lot of good vitamins and minerals in some of these natural products.

But don't you have to add sugar to homemade fruit puree? Or stewed fruit?

I culture my own yogurt with milk and a couple of spoonfuls from the previous batch. I can then add homemade fruit purée as I wish. But actually, this present culture I've got going is marvellous on its own!

I, too, make my own fruit yoghurt with natural yoghurt and fresh or stewed fruit. Very much nicer than the so-called fruit yoghurts available in supermarkets.

In the example given in this chapter an unemployed miner with a wife and two tiny children budgeted for 8 pounds of sugar a week.

www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/5.html

My MIL was a child in the war and her dad was in a reserved occupation working in a steel mill. This meant that her mother gave him more food than the children I think, because he was doing such a heavy manual job. That combined with sleeping in an anderson shelter for the duration did not set her up for a healthy life.
The words "low fat" are dangerous aren't they - they usually don't mean low calorie or low sugar. Lots of products like that - they make them more palatable by bumping up the sugar content.
Have you read The Road to Wigan Pier bags about life in northern England in the 30s? I think it was there that Orwell recounted the huge quantities of sugar consumed by poor people (it was cheap energy) .
And the section about living with the tripe merchants was mind boggling

DH has diabetes and some months ago I encouraged him to replace his low fat fruit yoghourt with plain yoghourt and add fresh or stewed fruit (stewed without sugar). He really enjoys it.

I had done a detailed study of yoghourt pot details and found it difficult to find a fruit yoghourt that was much less than 15% sugar. I rang Waitrose and asked if any brand of yoghourt was low on sugar and they said no.

Quite possibly – is that why school milk was introduced? – but it was still an improvement for a lot of people.

I have a suspicion that the war/rationing diet wasn't totally well balanced all the time and a lot of children lacked adequate calcium.

Yes you are right about orange juice. It contains loads of sugar, similar to soft drinks and the recommended serving is a very small glass a day (like those little ones you get in b and bs... ) Smoothies delicious but DH was glugging it down by the tumbler so I stopped buying them. Let them eat whole fruits! You would never chomp your way through half a dozen oranges in a day so why did we ever think it a bright idea to drink the juice of half a dozen oranges...?
(answer is of course clever marketing - the florida growers convinced every american mom that children needed pints of the stuff to stay healthy and the rest is history