The Truth About Sugar Free

Want to know the truth about ‘Sugar Free’?

When a packaged food is labelled as “Sugar Free,” that often means the real sugar was replaced with an artificial sweetener. This is yet another reason why it is so important to always read ingredient labels. Artificial sweeteners are created in a lab by food scientists and some of those sweeteners only entered our food system as recently as a few decades ago.

The Sugar Association says these artificial replacements are “chemically manufactured molecules – molecules that do not exist in nature.” And as a result, even though we do our best to avoid white (refined) sugar, I’d personally rather eat that the real thing over artificial sweeteners any day.

Sugar Free Does NOT aid weight loss.

Many people switch from full sugar drinks & foods to ‘sugar free’ thinking that it will save them a few hundred calories a day and in theory this is right.

The issue is you won’t lose weight drinking sugar free as artificial all artificial and ‘natural’ sugars sweeteners tend to have the same effect on your body. They all still spike your insulin levels and so you are still as much at risk with excessive weight gain, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease as you would be with excessive consumption of regular sugar.

Know your Sugars

Refined, added or processed sugar

• This is the type you buy in bags and add to drinks, sauces and baking. Refined or added sugar goes by lots of different names, but anything that ends with the letters -ose is a sugar (sucrose, dextrose, lactose, glucose). Anything that has syrup in the name, cane juice, molasses, dextrin, fruit juice pulp or fruit juice concentrate is also a sugar.

Natural ‘masquerading’ sugars

• These include honey, agave and maple syrup. Many people think these are better than refined or granulated sugar because they are more ‘natural’. But they cause a very similar surge in blood sugar levels to refined sugar.

Fructose

• This is the sugar that comes from fruit (and also honey). While fruit has lots of health benefits and isn’t ‘bad’ for you, there are plenty of other sources from which to get vitamins and fibre, such as vegetables.

If you are having fruit, try not to eat it on its own and have with a handful of nuts or protein.

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