Sugar

The World Health Organization recommends no more than 25g of sugar per day for optimum health. That’s six teaspoons! That’s easy! you say. "There’s no way I reach that amount every day, I only eat healthy sugars, apart from the odd treat!" Well, lets take a look at what six teaspoons of sugar looks like:

A small box of raisins (1 oz) - Dried fruit, while better than candy, is condensed little pellets of sugar without the added water to keep you full.

2/3 of a can of Coke - You already know that Coke is full of sugar, but did you know that one regular sized can has over nine teaspoons of sugar?

1/2 bottle of apple juice - With Apple Juice we have the opposite problem to dried fruit – the water stays, but the fiber is stripped out. A cup of apple juice can contain three to four apples… now could you eat that many in one go? Just eat the whole fruit.

One single serve tub of low-fat strawberry yogurt - When manufacturers take the fat out of yogurt, they have to replace it with something to make it palatable. That’s why low-fat fruit yogurts have up to six teaspoons of sugar per tub. Better to eat the whole fat version, plain, with your own fresh fruit.

Two bars of 85% dark chocolate - You’d find it difficult to eat 2 whole bars of dark chocolate, which is why the low-sugar treat is encouraged when we’re reintroducing sweetness to our diets. I admit, I use small bites of dark chocolate to treat myself, a little at a time.

Even the "good" sweets should be eaten with caution. Read the labels in order to keep your sugar content down.......or better yet, stay away from packaged foods and eat the whole food instead.

Bonus - recipe for a healthy dark chocolate:

Basic Raw Chocolate
Makes about 1 1/3 cups
1 cup coconut oil, softened
1/3 cup raw cacao powder
1 Tablespoon rice malt syrup
2 pinches of salt

Blend all the ingredients in a blender until smooth (or mix by hand). Pour into small silicone molds or ice-cube trays and keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Rice malt syrup is relatively slow-releasing so it does not dump on the liver as much as pure glucose. I think you fellow chocoholics will find this chocolate very satisfying. Enjoy!