I think it’s safe to say nowadays many
of us are trying to avoid a diet high in sugar, obviously for health reasons
and also personal fitness. It’s hard enough trying to crush that sugar craving,
without the added weight of the additional sugar that we don’t know about, hiding
in a fair share of packaged foods we eat. This is why it’s always advisable
take a look at the ingredient panels of the items we pick up when shopping.
Unfortunately, the panels might not always tell a vivid story and don’t always
differentiate between added sugars and naturally occurring sugar. It’s really
no one’s fault though, sugar has a way of playing hide and seek under the guise
of derivatives, such as dextrose, maple syrup, caramel etc.
Here we have compiled a list from
research of packaged food items that are mostly guilty of shipping in that
extra added sugar that you don’t know about, or as we would like to call it “Hidden
Sugar”.
Granola & Protein
Bars:
Some bars contain as much sugar as you
can find in your sweetest candy. And just because some bars are labelled as
organic doesn’t necessarily mean they’re healthy. Always scrutinize the
ingredient panel whenever you pick up that granola / protein bar.
Flavoured Yogurt:
Basically most brands of yogurt you’d
buy off the shelf at your neighbourhood supermarket or nearest convenience
store are flavoured. Most flavoured containers are super sugary even more than
you might imagine.
It’s best you choose a variety of
plain yogurt. Then you can decide to add you own healthy toppings to give it
some flavour. E.g. honey. This way you
get to manage how much added sugar winds up in your body.
Fruit Juice:
Ingredient scrutiny is very important
when it comes to buying that fruit juice and other fruit-based products at the
store. You’d be surprised that the sugar added to the fruit juice is equal to
what you'd find in a can of soda or fizzy drink.
Your best bet is to enjoy a whole
freshly squeezed fruit juice, preferably homemade. So investing in a juicer
won’t be a bad idea right now, matter of fact it’d be a great idea.
Pea Nut Butter:
This was probably one of your
favourites while growing up, and for some, even till now. This is so for a
reason, many brands of peanut butter contain certain amounts of added sugar and
molasses which is suitable enough to satisfy our childhood sweet tooth.
In this case our advice would be to
find peanut butter that contains 100% nuts with no added sugar.
