I'm going on a "No added sugar" diet for one month. Anyone care to join me?

Why just for one month?

@Dutchess_III I like dark chocolate way too much, I have about 3 ounces a day.

Yes, but why for just one month? Why not forever?

just make sure you don’t substitute one of the chemical, fake sugars (including Splenda). They are worse for you than sugar.

So…...no ketchup, no barbecue sauce, no ice cream, no mustard, no bacon, no peanut butter, no soy sauce, no salad dressing, no canned beans, no French fries, no margarine, no potato chips, no canned soups, no tomato sauce, no jarred spaghetti sauce….my point being that practically every prepared food has sugar added.

People talk about high fructose corn syrup as if it is somehow dangerous – it’s a sweetener, just like other sweeteners. The danger is that is it so incredibly cheap, it’s been used in practically every prepared food to affect flavor, even in unexpected items like frozen chicken dinners.

If you are planning to avoid added sugar, you’ll need to prepare your own food (including sauces and condiments).

HFCS is more similar to honey as far as the ratio of sugars: fructose and glucose. What makes it bad is that It’s heavily refined and often has contaminants left over from the refining process. It’s also super cheap and we consume large amounts of it which is not natural either.

@syz

I have major brands of mustard, peanut butter, canned beans, soups, and salad dressings in my pantry/fridge, and none have sugar in them.

Read carefully: corn sweetener, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, fruit juice concentrates, lactose, maltose, malt syrup, molasses, cane juice, cane syrup and sucrose. Any ingredient ending in “ose” is likely a form of sugar. Also, barley malt, honey, corn syrup, corn solids, evaporated cane juice, maple syrup, sorghum, agave, rice syrup, date sugar, caramel, and many more.. Anything that ends in –itol, like xylitol, mannitol, sorbitol and others are sugar alcohols.

I’m curious – what major brand of peanut butter do you have?

Why not just reduce your intake permanently instead of trying a yoyo diet?

@syz If you make your own food, it’s not that hard… but you’re right about the processed food. I buy organic almond butter and it tastes like crap (almonds and sea salt) unless I buy the one with honey in it (or chocolate… mmmmmm).

@rockfan Make sure you know how to interpret the labels. Sugar can be sneaky. (oops, I see @syz gave a much more thorough answer above).

I’m not going to cut out all sugar for a month (and I’m not totally sure what you mean by no added sugar), but I’m entering the last trimester of my pregnancy and, while I don’t have gestational diabetes, my glucola test results were higher than I would have liked. I’m nearing Advanced Maternal Age and am a bit overweight to start, and I have had very large kids so far (8lb 13 oz and 9lb 5oz). So I’m going to pay close attention to my sugar intake at each meal and overall for the day.

I had previously downloaded the materials for a 21 day sugar detox (you can google it) before it was a printed book… so I might look though that this weekend. I’m making more and more of my family’s food from scratch, so I have much better control over the ingredients.

So I’m kind of in…

Will you be following some rules? I’m an analyst… I like parameters to be neat and tidy. :)

@Silence04 re-asked my question. Why just for a month? What happens at the end of that month?

@syz Maple syrup is natural

Lot’s of sugars are natural. They aren’t bad for you except they make you fat and that’s bad for you.

@rockfan But it’s still sugar (honey is also natural).

Perhaps it would help us all if you would clarify what you mean by “no added sugar”. Do you mean no processed sugar? Are maple syrup, honey and agave syrup OK? Is cane sugar OK? Turbinado sugar?

@rockfan So is sugar.

The only sugar I’ll be eating is natural sugar from organic foods. But in very small amounts. But say for example, if it’s added to organic cereal, I won’t eat that cereal. That’s what I mean by “added sugars”.

So, WHY do you want to cut that out of your diet?

Sugar is a poison by itself when consumed in high does. Plus, even consuming sugar in moderation makes fruit taste less sweet.

Every thing will kill you if you eat too much of it, including water.

So you want to stop consuming so much sugar because it’s not good for you. SO WHY FOR JUST A MONTH??

I barely consume any refined sugar as it is, but I just want to see if I can go a month without sweetened almond milk, which is my biggest craving.

After a month, I’ll still be consuming very low amounts of added sugar.

I don’t understand “natural sugar from organic foods”.

@syz Apples have natural sugar, it’s not added.

But what’s the difference between eat an apple versus something with a comparable amount of natural fructose added?

@Silence04 Foods with a “comparable amount of natural fructose added” is so common in so many unexpected foods these days that the amount of sugar consumption is really high by the end of the day.

Sugar doesn’t belong in peanut butter in my opinion.

But what I’m saying is one could just as easily have a couple too many apples as they could scoops of peanut butter with added sugar.

Sugar molecules are sugar molecules, doesn’t matter if they are naturally occurring in food or added. I’m confused why a diet would try to separate the two, instead of just reducing the amount of sugar in general.

There’s a huge difference between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars. Natural sugars provide us with vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that our bodies need. The majority of added sugars (such as white sugar and table sugar) doesn’t supply any nutritional value and are considered empty calories.

I don’t know where you are getting that info from, but that’s completely false. Or At least it’s not worded correctly.

The fact is, there is no difference between a fructose molecule in an apple versus one that has been added to other food.

I think what you are trying to say is that there are other vitamins/minerals included in the food source that contains the naturally occurring sugar, which is true. However, those vitamins/minerals are also supplemented in many foods that also contain added sugar.