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Sugar guidelines question.

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Snowdog63

Snowdog63

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
I was just looking at the DUK web-site & found this:


How much sugar is ok?
The maximum targets per day are:
  • no more than 30g/seven cubes for adults and children from 11
and:

Different types of sugar
The type of sugar we should all be on the look out for is known as free sugar.

It's unclear to me whether the 30g target refers only to the free sugars or to the sugars contained in the carbs & fruit too.
 
It's not very clearly written, is it! It must mean 30g of free sugars per day, otherwise it's implying a daily target of 30g carbohydrate which is ultra low carbing by anybody's reckoning!
( As an aside, it bears out what I've always thought, that eating most muesli bars is as bad as having a bar of confectionary.)
 
That's what I was hoping, with regard to the sugars.

I used to love those "natural" bars. Natural?? Ha!!
 
Oh dear lord...

As the sugar content is from the fruit itself, it doesn’t count as a ‘free sugar’, so you can enjoy the sweetness without worrying about the consequences.
Click to expand...

"It's alright everyone, each as much fruit as you like because the sugar is magical!"
 
It's crazy, isn't it? Really unclear.
 
DeusXM said:
Oh dear lord...



"It's alright everyone, each as much fruit as you like because the sugar is magical!"
Click to expand...

Right, im off to buy a bunch of grapes!!!
 
Sugar content may be identical between eg grapes and sweets, but grapes do include some vitamins, minerals and fibre. Other fruits eg apples are lower sugar, but higher fibre, plus vitamins and minerals.
So don't avoid fruit completely, although vegetables often contain as much vitamin and mineral content, more fibre and lower sugar.
 
"The 13.3g of sugar in this particular bar consist of naturally-occurring sugars, which come directly from fruit. This is not the type of sugar we need to cut down on." Sigh! :(

I have pointed out our thoughts to Diabetes UK 🙂
 
Snowdog63 said:
It's crazy, isn't it? Really unclear.
Click to expand...

My brain hurts reading it! :confused:😛
I carb count all the fruit I eat (it's amazing how many friends don't believe me when I tell them that fruit is full of carb and I therefore have to cover it with insulin - some of them even try to argue me down).🙄
 
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Bloden said:
My brain hurts reading it! :confused:😛
I carb count all the fruit I eat (it's amazing how many friends don't believe me when I tell them that fruit is full of carb and I therefore have to cover it with insulin - some of them even try to argue me down).🙄
Click to expand...

Its the same where I work. If I fancy a snack I'm careful with what I choose, but people just say eat some fruit then offer me pineapple, grapes and melon and seem shocked when I refuse it!!! I limit myself to 2 portions of fruit a day now. Usually an apple and something else.
 
So don't avoid fruit completely
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone's saying that, and no-one is disputing that a handful of grapes, in spite of the sugar content, is entirely as 'bad' for you as a glass of Coke...just that ALL sugars need to be accounted for, whether they are 'free' or not.

I note that D-UK has been VERY clever with their terminology. By differentiating between 'free' and 'unfree' sugar, they've avoided the common criticisms usually made when people use the term 'natural', by creating the idea that sugar is fine as long as it's attached to a vitamin source rather than added. Amazingly, they have actually differentiated between a portion of fruit and smoothies, which I agree makes technical sense but ultimately, whether you stick a banana in a blender or just straight in your gob, it's still the same quantity of sugar going in, just that the smoothie sugar will get in slightly quicker.

Someone really needs to tell D-UK that your body unfortunately doesn't take into account the terminology anyone might use to describe stuff and just sees 'sugar' as 'sugar'. It doesn't matter how many vitamins are in an orange, it won't offset the damage done by an uncontrolled glucose rise.
 
DeusXM said:
I don't think anyone's saying that, and no-one is disputing that a handful of grapes, in spite of the sugar content, is entirely as 'bad' for you as a glass of Coke...just that ALL sugars need to be accounted for, whether they are 'free' or not.

I note that D-UK has been VERY clever with their terminology. By differentiating between 'free' and 'unfree' sugar, they've avoided the common criticisms usually made when people use the term 'natural', by creating the idea that sugar is fine as long as it's attached to a vitamin source rather than added. Amazingly, they have actually differentiated between a portion of fruit and smoothies, which I agree makes technical sense but ultimately, whether you stick a banana in a blender or just straight in your gob, it's still the same quantity of sugar going in, just that the smoothie sugar will get in slightly quicker.

Someone really needs to tell D-UK that your body unfortunately doesn't take into account the terminology anyone might use to describe stuff and just sees 'sugar' as 'sugar'. It doesn't matter how many vitamins are in an orange, it won't offset the damage done by an uncontrolled glucose rise.
Click to expand...
It's not Diabetes UK that has invented this terminology, it was used in Public Health England guidelines.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...9/Sugar_reduction_The_evidence_for_action.pdf
The definition of sugar as meaning Free sugars is laid out here.
image.png
 
I think the long-awaited wider awareness of the dangers of sugar (& hopefully a resulting move away from "fat" obsessed foods to "sugar" obsessed ones - because let's be honest, companies are only capable of turning these things into a way of making money) has to be seen as a positive move. If a reduction in (or lack of) "free sugar" in bought foods were to become the norm, this would be beneficial to society as a whole.

It's unfortunate that the D-UK web site seems to mix up its advice for "everyone" with its advice for diabetics. Dammit, it's OUR website, isn't it?? :D
 
Umm, I'm confused by that document. Exactly how do 'sugars...naturally present in fruit juices...' differ from 'sugars naturally present in intact fruit...' other than their delivery?
 
I don't think they do. It's a badly written item.
 
I think this is the whole problem with the sugar debate, they are confusing things by assigning different attributes to sugar depending on its origin - it's all sugar, and simply needs to be kept in moderation in a healthy diet 🙄
 
I remember a few articles when the PHE document came out. I think the thinking behind lumping fruit juice in the 'bad' category and fruit in the 'good' was that people can easily neck back a pint of orange juice not realising how many squashed oranges they're drinking, whereas you only tend to eat one whole orange, and you get the benefit of the fibre in it. It ignored things like pineapple and grapes that it's easy to eat like sweets. It's always a problem when something is oversimplified, a lot of the logic goes out of the window.
 
It's not Diabetes UK that has invented this terminology, it was used in Public Health England guidelines.
Click to expand...

picard-meme.jpg



Can you imagine the furore there'd be if we described 'added fat' as 'free', with the implication that the thick chunk of fat on a sirloin doesn't count as fat?
 
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