Eating healthy obviously does not exclude eating sugar. For the simple and good reason that our body needs it. More precisely, our body needs carbohydrates: the essential fuel for the cells of the body and in particular the cells of the brain.
Simple carbohydrates are further divided into two categories: sugars naturally present in foods such as fructose in fruit or lactose in milk, and added sugars which, as their name suggests, are not naturally present in food and are added during preparation. It is these added sugars that are particularly problematic and that you should try to consume in lesser quantities. Consumed in excess, they promote the development of certain serious pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes and potentially weight gain.
Not always easy to spot on food labels, they are found under different names: glucose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, corn syrup, raffinose, maltose, wheat dextrose, transformed starch, etc.
It’s not a scoop: sugary drinks contain astronomical amounts of added sugar. On average, a 33-cl soda contains 28 grams of sugar. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends reducing the intake of added sugars to less than 10% of the total energy intake in adults and children. The institution adds that it would be even better for health to reduce sugar intake to less than 5% of the total energy intake, or about 25 grams (6 teaspoons) per day. This means a can of soda provides more than the recommended ideal daily amount.
In some households, sugary drinks have become regular substitutes for water. Unlike a cake that you chew, a sugary drink is swallowed quite quickly: immediately sipped, immediately forgotten, you can drink large quantities without even realizing it.
Sometimes we think we’re doing the right thing by drinking a fruit juice or a smoothie every morning, and yet these drinks are false friends. On supermarket shelves, nectars and other concentrated fruit juices are to be placed in the same category as the sugary drinks mentioned above. Far from helping us fill the quota of the famous five fruits and vegetables per day, industrial fruit juices have almost no nutritional quality: they have lost all their vitamins, all their fibers and a hell of a dose of sugar has been added.
As for natural fruit juices, which you press yourself, they are more interesting because they contain a few more vitamins, but they are still sweet foods that should not be overdone.
A little hollow despite everything? To avoid jumping on ready-to-eat foods from the vending machine, Marie-Anne Talleux advises planning snacks in advance.
A mix of oilseed fruits, fresh cheese with crackers, vegetable sticks with hummus, plain yogurt with fresh fruit… Simple things to prepare and transport, as easy to draw as a chocolate bar when the stomach is crying out for food!