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healthy eating

Where’s The Sugar Hiding?

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Sugar is sweet but it’s also sneaky, masquerading under many different names. Read one of those jam labels that says, “All Fruit” or “Spreadable Fruit” on the front.  Then turn the jar over and read ingredients. Most likely you’ll find juice concentrates (often as the first ingredient) and maltodextrin — both forms of sugar.

How Good Is Your Sugar Vocabulary?

According to Environmental Nutrition foods with all of the following names are sugars (these are common sources, there are other sugars that aren’t listed here):

  • Dextrose
  • Corn syrup
  • High fructose corn syrup
  • Maltodextrin
  • Fruit juice concentrates
  • Malt syrup
  • Molasses
  • Invert sugar
  • Honey
  • Sorghum
  • Agave
  • Maple syrup
  • Cane sugar

Added Vs. Natural Sugars

The sugars that you eat can occur naturally or be added. Natural sugars are found naturally in the food — like fructose in fruit and lactose in milk.  Added sugars are the many kinds of sugar and syrup – including sweeteners like honey, agave, and maple syrup, for example — that are added into food at the table or during the food’s preparation or processing.

Common Sources Of Added Sugars

Some sources are obvious – others require a bit of checking of the ingredients label.  Here are some examples of foods that usually have added sugar:

  • Regular soft drinks
  • Sugar; syrups (do you put maple syrup on your pancakes?); and candy
  • Cakes; cookies; pies; donuts; pastries; breakfast and snack bars
  • Fruit drinks like fruitades and fruit punch; sweetened teas, sports drinks, and flavored water
  • Dairy desserts and milk products like ice cream; sweetened yogurt; pudding; and flavored milk
  • Many cereals; toast with jelly/jam; and many breads — both home made “quick breads” and store-bought sliced breads
  • Sweeteners added to coffee, tea, cereal; canned fruit

Not More Than Half Of Your Discretionary Calorie Allowance

What’s daily discretionary calorie allowance?  It’s the number of calories you have left to use after you meet your nutrient needs — without exceeding your energy needs.

In other words, they are the calories that you can use up eating different types of foods after you’ve eaten enough to meet your body’s nutrition needs — but not so many that they would contribute to weight gain.

Discretionary calories can come from any source of calories (protein, fat, carbohydrates, alcohol).  The American Heart Association recommends that no more than half of your daily discretionary calories come from added sugars.

For most American women that’s no more than 100 calories a day, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar.  For men, that’s no more than 150 calories a day, or about 9 teaspoons of sugar.  (FYI there are about 10 teaspoons of sugar in a 12 ounce can of regular soda.)

 

What Do Total Carbohydrate And Added Sugar On The Nutrition Label Mean?

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Trying to figure out the carbohydrates on nutrition facts labels can be downright confusing.  There’s a number for total carbohydrates but then there are subheadings for dietary fiber, sugars, and sometimes insoluble fiber, sugar alcohols, and other carbohydrates.

What Does Everything Mean?

  • Total Carbohydrate, shown in grams, is first. It gives you the total number of usable carbs per serving. This number includes starches, complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, added sugars, and non-digestible additives.
  • The subheadings under Total Carbohydrate are Dietary Fiber, sometimes broken down into Soluble and Insoluble Fiber; Sugars; and sometimes categories for Sugar Alcohols and/or Other Sugars. The sum of these numbers will not always equal the total carbs because some starches — types of carbs often used as binders or thickeners — aren’t required to be listed on food labels.
  • Dietary Fiber, shown in grams, gives you the amount of fiber per serving. Dietary fiber is indigestible, usually passes through your intestinal tract without being absorbed, doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels, and slows down the impact of the other carbs in a meal. Subtracting the non-impact carbs – the ones that don’t affect blood sugar (fiber and sugar alcohols) from the total carbs gives you the number of net (also called usable or impact) carbs – the ones that do affect your blood sugar.
  • Sugars gives you the total amount of carbohydrate, in grams, from naturally occurring sugars like lactose (milk sugar) and fructose (fruit sugar) PLUS any added sugars like high fructose corn syrup, brown and white sugar, cane juice, etc. Added sugars are the sugars and syrups added to foods during processing or preparation.  They add calories but little or no nutrients.
  • You can determine if there are a lot of added sugars by checking the product’s ingredients label. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity so if added sugars (white/brown sugar, corn syrup, etc.) are listed in the top three or four ingredients you can guess that the bulk of the sugars are added, not naturally occurring.
  • Some products, although not all, separately list Sugar Alcohols. You might see mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, and others on the ingredients label. If the package says the product is “sugar-free” or has “no sugar added” it must list the sugar alcohols in the ingredients. If more than one type of sugar alcohol is listed, there must be a line for sugar alcohol grams on the nutrition label.
  • Other Carbohydrates shows the number of digestible complex carbohydrates not considered a sugar (natural or added) and includes additives like stabilizers and starchy thickening agents.

Now, isn’t that crystal clear?


Are You A Fast Eater? Even If You’re Not, Read This

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Slow down when you eat. Moms around the world often say the same thing: slow down and chew your food. (Doesn’t that often go with don’t grab?)

Why?  By slowing down you allow the feeling of fullness to register and it may even mean that you eat fewer calories. You might even have time to really taste and enjoy your food, too – although Mom might say it’s just good manners.

Is It Gone Before You Realize You’ve Eaten It?

Do you wolf your food down so quickly that it’s gone before you realize you’ve eaten it all – and, to boot, you’re still hungry and staring at an empty plate?

According to an article in the New York Times, studies show that people who eat quickly eat more calories than they would if they ate a bit more slowly. The people who ate more slowly also felt fuller.

A study showed that the hormones that give you a feeling of fullness, or satiety, are more pronounced when you eat slowly. People in the study who were given identical servings of ice cream released more of those hormones when they ate the ice cream in 30 minutes instead of 5 minutes.

You Might Eat Less

Eating slowly leads to eating less, too – not just because your plate is cleared before all the food is gone because everyone else is tired of waiting for you to finish.

According to an article published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association people who ate at a slow pace compared to when they ate very quickly said they were fuller and ended up eating about 10% fewer calories.

An analysis of surveys completed by 3287 adults ages 30-69, found that combining the two behaviors of eating until full and eating quickly can have a significant impact on being overweight

Stroll, Don’t Race

Haven’t you ever said, “I shouldn’t have had that second cookie (or third) as your stomach begins to expand like a balloon?

It can take up to 20 minutes for your body to register that it’s full.   The problem is that during that interval when you’ve really had enough food but don’t necessarily recognize it, a lot of us continue to shovel food into our mouths – and end up feeling absolutely stuffed.

Do what Mom said.  Slow down, take your time eating, and chew. Give your body a chance to figure out if it really needs more food.  Then maybe you won’t have to take a nap – or unbutton your jeans.

 

Snacks: Are They Your Fourth Meal?

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Why can a day’s worth of snacks be considered a fourth meal?  Because, according to research, snacking accounts for more than 25% of Americans’ calorie intake everyday.

How Many Calories Do We Snack On A Day?

Between 1977 and 2006 Americans averaged about 580 calories each day for their snacks — which basically turned those snacks into “a full eating event,” or a fourth meal.

Maybe we snack on so many calories because eating and drinking while we’re doing something else has also increased.  Between 2006 and 2008, the amount of time we spent eating our main meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner – was about 70 minutes.  Secondary eating, the kind you do when you’re doing things like working on the computer, driving, or walking down the street, doubled from 15 minutes in 2006 to nearly 30 minutes a day in 2008.  There was nearly a 90% jump in the time we spent on secondary drinking:  from 45 to 85 minutes. (Ever wonder why Starbuck’s is so crowded?)

Come On, Be Honest

Haven’t you ever chowed down on a whole bunch of food — maybe the equivalent of a meal — around 5PM and then tried to convince yourself that it’s just a snack?

Although nearly 100% of Americans of all ages snack every day, there isn’t a standard definition  of what a snack is or what motivates us to snack. So, what happens is that it’s left up to each one of us to “self-define” what snacks and snacking mean, leaving plenty of room for us to blur the line between snacks and meals.

How Much Do We Spend On Packaged Snacks?

We spend about 12% of our total food money at the supermarket on packaged snacks. Kids are learning to replace meals with snacks – a lifestyle that is likely to continue when those kids grow up and have their own families.  And food companies are smart – they’re making health claims and highlighting things like fiber and nutrients on the snack packages which often make them sound more appealing and even healthy.  That packaging, with the illusion of health, could even ease the guilt people might have when they reach for a caloric prepackaged snack that may or may not be made of real food.

So, What’s A Snack?

There’s an increase in snacking across the board, but beverages make up 50% of snack calories. those calories in drinks — including the sugar and cream in coffee — can add up to a pretty significant number.

A snack shouldn’t be a fourth meal.  Most recommendations are that an individual snack, like the one so many of us have mid-morning or mid-afternoon, be between 150 and 200 calories and have some protein in it for satiety and to help keep your  blood sugar level stable.

Multi-tasking = Distraction = Mindless Eating

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Do You Work Or Watch TV While You’re Eating?

Where do you have your breakfast?  In the car or train while you’re going to work?  Maybe while you’re walking down the street juggling that plastic topped paper cup of coffee, a muffin, your books and papers, your open jacket flapping in the breeze.

Where do you eat lunch:  at your desk; standing in front of the kitchen sink; in front of the computer – or maybe with your open laptop competing for lap space which then gets blessed with drips and a chunk of tomato that’s oozed out from your sandwich?

A poll of more than 1500 people (Wansink, Mindless Eating), found that:

  • 91% usually watch TV when eating meals at home alone
  • 62% are frequently too busy to sit down and eat
  • 35% eat lunch at their desk
  • 26% often eat while they drive

Distraction Vs. Weight

When you multi-task you’re distracted and distraction is the enemy of weight management (and tasting your food).  Any kind of distraction can lead to:

  • eating too much — a procrastination method used by many
  • forgetting –  or not being aware — of what you’re eating
  • not knowing how much (the quantity) you’re eating;
  • why you’re eating – of even if you’re really hungry.

Mindless Eating

When you’re distracted your focus is not on your food but rather on about a hundred different things.  That’s the classic recipe for mindless eating.

What Can You Do?

Everyone is busy.  Everyone eats.  Putting the two together can lead to mindless eating and creeping weight gain (and maybe indigestion).  How about making your own personal set of eating rules?

In good conscience I can’t really suggest eating without doing other things.  That’s the classic recommendation but I frequently eat while I work.  While that “rule” won’t work for me maybe it will for you.

Create Your Own FoodMAP

If you’re like me, perhaps you can set a rule that you’re going to serve yourself a set portion of food and that’s all you’ll eat. No seconds and no squeezing so much on your plate that you essentially have seconds without getting up for more.

Perhaps you set a snacking rule – one snack only and not before 3PM — or not before you finish whatever project you’re working on.  Just do it mindfully so the whole afternoon doesn’t turn into one long episode of coffee drips and food crumbs all over your keyboard.  Once relieved from unrelenting snacking you may figure out why you haven’t been hungry at dinnertime (which you would eat anyway – while checking your emails — because it’s time for dinner).

Perhaps you want to turn over a new leaf and solely concentrate on your meals.  The choice is yours.  The challenge is to do what is right for you, your body, and your lifestyle.  Create your own FoodMAP.  Just try to make mindful choices that work for you.

What’s your plan?