Time for our annual hidden sugar primer

When I saw Justvegantoday.com writing this piece about hidden sugars, I thought — haven’t I written about that before? Yes, severel times it seems. But it’s good to have an annual reminder.

*Sugar is hiding everywhere in our food supply, be aware.*

“Sugar often masquerades under various aliases, making it even more challenging to identify them in an ingredients list. Common names include fructose, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, and dozens more. Manufacturers often use these alternative names to disguise the actual amount of sugar they are putting into products,” Justvegantoday.com writes.

How to combat the sugar rush?

Continue reading →

March 14, 2025 0

The quest for a new non-sugar sweetener goes on, with some bad news, some good

Finding a non-sugar sweetener for food and beverages, one without it’s own unwanted side-effects, has been the holy grail of food processors for as long as I’ve written about the food business (40 years). A new possibility, brazzein, is getting some positive attention now.

Another, Xylitol, long used in sugar-free candies and elsewhere, is getting negative attention, however.

“A new study linking the low-calorie sugar substitute xylitol to an increased risk of heart attack or stroke,” reports The New York Times.

“For the new study, the researchers measured the levels of xylitol in blood plasma samples of over 3,000 participants who had fasted overnight. They found that people with the highest xylitol levels had roughly double the risk of heart attack, stroke or death within the next three years compared to people with the lowest levels,” the Times reports.

Xylitol, also known as sugar alcohol, has never been something I could eat much of without becoming bloated and…well, you know. So this study isn’t worrying me so much.

But I am interested to read a company has received permission to use brazzein, a sweet protein produced through fermentation, reports The Food Institute.

Continue reading →

June 24, 2024 0

Craving sugar (I am)? Try these fruits

Of salt, fat and sugar, sugar is the hardest for me to get out of my diet. I live for candy, cake, etc, all of which are bad for me trying to stay on a heart-healthy diet. So what can I do? How about trying some fruit?

This piece from Eatingwell.com lists eight fruits that can help satisfy your sugar craving.

*Try getting your sugar from fruit instead of candy and cake.*

Usually these “healthy” lists include lots of things I don’t eat but this list has six fruits, out of eight, that I actually like.

Fresh figs are a favorite for me but I have to limit my intake to avoid stomach issues from them. Dried figs are available year-round, but the sugar is concentrated, so beware if you’re on a sugar-restricted diet. A doctor told me the same thing about avoiding grapes when I received nutrition advice for my diabetic mother.

I don’t think of apples as sugary but they made the list too as did pears.

Good luck trying these, always check with your do

May 26, 2023 0

Sugar, salt limits coming for school lunches

Somehow making school lunches healthier became a political issue in recent years. The Obama administration pushed for less salt, fat and sugar in school lunches. Then the Trump administration did the opposite. Now, with Biden in the White House, federal regulators are ready to bring out restrictions on salt and added sugar in school lunches.

Associated Press reported that the USDA “proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries.

“The plan announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible.

The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said.”

Unfortunately, the first limits of added sugars wouldn’t;t go into effect until the 2025-2026 school year, after another national election that could upend these plans all over again.

Children’s health should not be a political issue, just as the country’s obesity epidemic should not be a political issue. Both need to be addressed, and soon.

February 7, 2023 0

Worried about your blood sugar? Here are some helpful tips to help control it

While this blog is called No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar, most of my efforts go to controlling my salt intake because I’ve seen how salt directly impacts my blood pressure. But I recently came across this piece that is directed at those worried about their blood sugar levels and thought it worth sharing.

Cutting sugar, as found in treats like this, is extremely tough work, confirms a new study.

6 Ways to Lower Your Blood Sugar With Breakfast has some tips that sounded obvious, like eating complex carbs. One tip that surprised me, though was to not exercise before breakfast. I routinely do that because I want to get the exercising done before I start my day. I’m also routinely hungrier after exercising. Continue reading “Worried about your blood sugar? Here are some helpful tips to help control it” →

April 10, 2019 0

Soda tax can cut consumption, new study finds

Soda makers for years have lived in fear of local soda taxes that would hurt their businesses. When one passed on Cook County, Ill. where I live, a massive lobbying effort was launched that successfully repealed it.

My Super Big Gulp days are over when it comes to diet soda, I given it up for water on the advice of nutritionists...who didn't mention arsenic in water could be a cause of my heart troubles. — Should sugar-sweetened beverages be taxed?

Advocates of such taxes have cast them as public health issues, but here it was cast simply as a way to raise needed tax dollars. The thinking was the health argument is a hard one to sell to consumers who don’t want to give up their soda.

When soda taxes are enacted, they do cut consumption. The latest study on the topic, looking at a soda tax enacted by Berkeley, California, in 2014 shows that once again.

Consumption there dropped by half in the three years following the law’s passage, found a study done by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Continue reading “Soda tax can cut consumption, new study finds” →

March 4, 2019 0

Ever hear of the 80/20 Diet? It wouldn’t work for me

So many diet plans come and go, it’s always amusing to me how people think a specific plan could be the answer to all their eating and health problems. This piece I saw recently talks about the 80/20 Diet, which I hadn’t heard about before.

MY half slice of Junior's chocolate mousse cheesecake, Mmmmmmm. — MY half slice of Junior’s chocolate mousse cheesecake, Mmmmmmm.

Basically, it says it you eat healthy 80% of the time, you can splurge on junk food the other 20%, presumably on weekends which we tend to think of as rest and party time.

If you can be that mathematical about your eating, more power to you. I’m an all-or-nothing type of person, which means I either have to eat healthy all the time, or I eat junk food every single day. Continue reading “Ever hear of the 80/20 Diet? It wouldn’t work for me” →

March 3, 2019 0

Find the hidden sugar…and help yourself eat healthier

Salt, incredibly high amounts of salt, hides in almost all processed and restaurant foods. That’s why I spend so much time looking at food labels and writing here about low- and no-salt alternatives to salty products. Check my smart shopping page and my ingredients page for those.

I've found two brands of low-sodium,low-sugar ketchup, Westbrae and LocalFolks Foods. — I’ve found two brands of low-sodium,low-sugar ketchup, Westbrae and LocalFolks Foods.

But sugar also hides in many foods and these days nutritionists think too much sugar may do as much if not more harm to your body as too much salt does. Continue reading “Find the hidden sugar…and help yourself eat healthier” →

October 13, 2018 1

Product review: Sans Sucre sugar-free mousse and brownies

Baking is not usually my thing, I find it a bit too scientific a process as compared to cooking which allows for more freedom to depart from recipes and become artistic. So most of the recipes you’ll find on this blog are for cooking main courses and side dishes rather than desserts.

That said, I love to eat baked goods such as cakes and doughnuts, items I really should try to avoid on my heart-healthy diet because of sugar and fat they contain.

So when I was approached by a public relations person for a brand called Sans Sucre which makes sugar-free and gluten-free baking mixes, I was intrigued enough by the prospect of guilt-free items that I asked for samples to try to make. (The brand name means without sugar in French, by the way.)

I’ve since tried the sugar-free, low-fat Chocolate Mousse Mix and the sugar-free chocolate fudge brownie mix. Of the two, I enjoyed the mousse more and found it relatively simple to make, even for a baking-challenged cook like me. Continue reading “Product review: Sans Sucre sugar-free mousse and brownies” →

April 30, 2018 0

New American Diabetes Association book provides hundreds of meal possibilities

Cookbooks tend to become shelf clutter because most make it difficult to plan a week’s or even a full day’s worth of meals. One of the reasons I like the new American Diabetes Association cookbook, called Complete Month of Meals Collection is because of how it’s put together — recipe cards are held in a spiral binder and stacked for each meal of the day.

So you can flip through breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes and plan your day, or week if you want, making shopping easier and cutting down on food waste in the process.

The recipe cards are easy to understand, clearly listing ingredients on the front side and nutrition info for each dish on the back.

While the recipes are formulated with diabetics in mind, I found they generally did pretty well on holding down salt content too. Continue reading “New American Diabetes Association book provides hundreds of meal possibilities” →

February 6, 2018 0

Tag: sugar