I WAS at the supermarket recently and I heard a girl ask her parents if she could have a particular cereal.
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Her mum checked the box and read, “high in iron, folate, fibre and B-vitamins, yep we can get it”.
I kept thinking about it and went back to check the ingredients of what most would consider a healthy cereal, and fair enough based on the advertising.
Ingredients on food labels are listed in descending order by weight, the first ingredient contributing the largest amount and the last ingredient contributing the least.
In this case we had wholegrain cereals, raw sugar, salt, barley malt extract, sugar, sunflower oil, wheat flour, honey, fruit purees, sugar, invert sugar … and so on.
I checked more boxes of cereals that many kids would be eating regularly and they were basically the same, and worse!
How many versions of sugar can they put in one “healthy” cereal?
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A recent study of 43 children reduced their dietary sugar from 28 per cent to 10 per cent for nine days, replacing it with starch.
Calories, protein and fat remained unchanged and in this very short time, blood pressure reduced, triglycerides lowered by 46 per cent, bad cholesterol was down three points and glucose tolerance improved.
Some lost weight and some didn’t, but results were consistent throughout the group regardless of weight lost.
Excessive dietary sugar influences nutrient absorption, behaviour, autoimmune conditions, eczema, ADHD and much more, and sadly our kids are prime targets for advertisers.
So, what should we do now?
IMPLEMENTING a few things to reduce overall sugar intake is a great start, you don’t need to change everything at once.
Avoid energy drinks, soft drinks, cordial and artificial sweeteners completely.
They are not doing you or your children’s health any favours.
Have fresh fruit instead of fruit juice which is still high in sugar.
Fibre in the fruit also helps to slow the absorption of sugar.
Replace cereal with eggs, smoothies or avocado on sourdough.
There’s heaps of great breakfast options, email me for some more ideas.
Implement one of these ideas every fortnight if it seems more manageable, but get the family onboard and start lowering your sugar intake together.
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