Below is a quick run down of our rules and how we apply them to the food we eat.
- 4 grams of sugar per 100g of product we are lucky in New Zealand, most of our labels are pretty clear, once you know what to look for.
- Dairy and Tomato products are exceptions to the above rule – this is where it gets a bit tricky when you are new to this – Dairy products (milk, cream, yoghurt etc) have milk sugars call LACTOSE. Lactose will rate at 4.7 grams of sugar per 100g, this is okay! but if your dairy products have higher than 4.7gms you need to look at which products comply, this can take a while, Our supermarkets only stock 2 brands of yoghurt that we can eat.
- Tomato products are tricky. tomatoes are naturally high in sugar, but with so many beneficial phytochemicals such as lycopene, tomatoes are definitely something that we feel is important in the diet. You basically have to forget about the above rules and CAREFULLY check the ingredients list, as long as it contains NO sugar or even artificial sweeteners, it is fine.
- No dried fruit or juices of any kind – The drying process for fruit concentrates the sugar into extreme amounts. Juicing is sort of the same, if you are buying bottled juice, it will most definitely have added sugar. If is is freshly squeezed, it still has large amounts of sugar concentrated into one glass. Think of it this way, to get your one glass of yummy freshly juiced fruit or vegetable juice, it requires a lot more fruit and vegetables than you would be capable of eating at one sitting, minus all the fibre and nutrients, to tell your body that you are full.
- Sweeteners – The only sweeteners we have and use are Dextrose (glucose) Rice Malt Syrup. this is not to say that you can simple replace sugar with one of the above sweeteners and think you are Fructose free. The whole idea is to break the addiction of wanting sweet foods. The only time we use the above sweeteners in generally in baking, which is saved for special treats or birthday parties etc. If I can reduce or cut out any form of sweetener, I will.
- One site we love is Yummly which contains all of our recipes showing the nutritional information for each dish, an absolutely fantastic resource. Not only can you find all of our recipes on Yummly but there are literally thousands of other yummy recipes on this site , well worth a look.