Question on added sugar

cozmik

Is this true?

If you want to know how many teaspoons of added sugar is in a food you are eating, just divide the number of grams of sugar on the label by four.

Khannie

Sounds about right to me.

BUT...

Things like museli might have 20g of sugar per 100g. This is not from added sugar. It's from the fructose in the fruit (raisins, etc.). But for things like coke and so on, that estimate sounds about right to me.

cozmik

Thanks Khannie!

I just checked a packet of fig rolls and it says 7.2g of sugar per biscut so that's 1.8 teaspoons of sugar in every biscut! :eek:

Khannie

Nah, a lot of that's going to be in the figs as their natural sugar (fructose). Does it give the weight of each biscuit?

cozmik

Only 23% is figs

http://www.jacobfruitfield.com/brands/figrolls/info.asp

g'em

There are days when knowing how to read ingredients lists is really depressing. Sometimes I'd rather live in ignorance and keep eating fig rolls/ Ben n' Jerry's/ chicken wings

The ingredients of fig rolls:

Wheat Flour, Figs (23%), Glucose Syrup, Sugar, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Raising Agent (Sodium Bicarbonate), Citric Acid, Emulsifier (Sodium Stearoyl - 2 - Lactylate).

So glucose syrup (sugar) and sugar are the third and fourth largest ingredients by volume, with vegetable oil (quite probably low-grade cheap stuff used in food manufacture) is fifth. It doesn't bode well for the figgy bundles of goodness really. The citric acid and emulsifiers help to stablise the biscuit dough and prolong its longevity on the shelves.

Don't necessarily stop eating fig rolls, but eat them in or around training time when you can put the calories to best use.

cozmik

g'em wrote: »

Don't necessarily stop eating fig rolls, but eat them in or around training time when you can put the calories to best use.

IMHO anything with Glucose syrup or other supped-up sugars, especially that high on the ingredient list should be avoided whenever possible.

EileenG

Personally, I wouldn't worry about the number of teaspoons of sugar, and just try to avoid anything with a high carb content or with sugar in any form as one of the first four or five ingredients. If wheat is one of the top ingredients as well, be particularly wary.