An Easy Way To Visualise How Much Sugar Is Actually In The Stuff You Eat

An Easy Way To Visualise How Much Sugar Is Actually In The Stuff You Eat

Sugar isn’t inherently bad for you, but producers add so much of the stuff to their food and drink it’s way past overkill. Trouble is, a number like “20g of sugar” on a nutrition label isn’t easy to comprehend. This trick will help.

In the video above from the Business Insider YouTube channel, registered nutritionist Andy Bellatti explains a simple way to mentally visualise how much sugar is your favourite snacks and beverages. Take the listed grams of sugar, then divide by four. That’s how many teaspoons, or small spoonfuls, of sugar are in there. If, for example, your soft drink has 20g of sugar in it, that means it has five teaspoons of sugar. If you were to go measure those out and dump them in a bowl, it wouldn’t seem nearly as appetising. Ideally, you should keep your added sugar intake to less than 40g per day, so keep that in mind as you do your shopping.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/07/why-you-should-care-about-added-sugars-in-your-food/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/ko7bn8k3uj4nrdmpvlpo.png” title=”Why You Should Care About Added Sugars In Your Food” excerpt=”While Australia doesn’t list added sugars on food labels, perhaps it should. Added sugars will be required on new labels rolling out in the US in a year or two. A 570g Pepsi will have to say it contains 130 per cent of your daily value of added sugar. Yogurt will have to call out their added sugar, so people can’t kid themselves that it all comes from fruit. Food companies fought the change, but they lost. Yes, sugar industry, you are right. Added sugars are made of the same stuff as natural sugars. But the FDA’s new labels are about health, not about getting the right answer on a chemistry quiz. It’s really useful to know which foods contain a ton of added sugars.”]

A nutritionist explains an easy way to understand how much sugar you’re eating daily [YouTube]


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