Sugar is the new evil. It’s official. In the effort to maintain a healthy diet we’re now realising we need to cut down on our sugar intake. But it’s hard – sugar’s everywhere! Breakfast cereals and breakfast bars are packed full of added sugar, the vending machine at work is full of sugary drinks and snacks, biscuits and cakes are practically made entirely of sugar and it’s even in the dinners and sauces we buy from the supermarket.
A good start is to get our heads around exactly how much sugar is too much. The World Health Organization and the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition have recently halved the recommended daily limits of added sugar we should be consuming:
- adults & teenagers should consume no more than six teaspoons or roughly 25 grams of added sugar a day
- children aged four to ten should consume no more than five teaspoons or about 20.5 grams of added sugar a day
- toddlers aged one-and-a-half to three should consume no more than three-and-a-half teaspoons or roughly 15 grams of added sugar a day
How much sugar do you think you and your family get through a day? Are you downing the sugary stuff all day at work? Do you think it’d be easy to cut down your added sugar intake to within these recommend limits?
- Are you having too much sugar?
- How much sugar is in soft drinks?
- Top 10 tips to beat sugar cravings
- How to avoid different types of added sugar
- Why do we get sugar cravings?
by Bob Fear