What shouldn't I eat if I am trying to cut out refined sugar from my diet?

Question

I understand that I can't have cookies, ice cream, candy, or other junk food the like, but I guess I am a little unclear on the specifics. What about yogurt or juices? Is organic sugar or other types of sweetners okay? Any advice or info resources would be much appriciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

My husband and I have cut sugars from our diets as well. The easiest way to avoid added sugars is to avoid processed foods as much as possible and eat whole foods instead. There are too many ways for food manufacturers to "hide" sugar. Here's a list of sugar's disguises.

Corn sweetener
Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids
Dehydrated Cane Juice
Dextrose
Fructose
Fruit juice concentrate
Glucose
High-fructose corn syrup
Honey
Invert sugar
Lactose
Maltodextrin
Malt syrup
Maltose
Maple syrup
Molasses
Raw sugar
Rice Syrup
Sucrose
Syrup
Turbinado Sugar

Of course, it would be really hard to avoid sugar entirely, but if you concentrate on eating whole, unprocessed foods for the most part, and eating processed foods only when you must, like whole-wheat bread for instance, your body will benefit from the change.

Answer 2

Soda, candy bars, cookies etc are bad. Natural yogurt and 100% juices are okay. Avoid juices that are not 100%. Artificial sweeteners are not made from sugar, so technically they are okay, but aspartame and the like are not exactly great for you, so I'd avoid them too.

I'm not sure what you mean by organic sugar...if this just refers to sugar canes grown organically, you'll have to avoid it too...it's still a processed ("refined") sugar.

Answer 3

you should eat yoghurts or drinks sweetened with sweetener, not sugar (despite the sugar type).
of course no cookies, ice creams etc as you said.
You can only take sugar by the sacarose (the component in sugar that gives sweeteness) contained in the food or fruits from nature.
Anything with added sugar (any kind of it), would be not advisable.
There are versions of many products that you can buy in the market like diet ice cream for instance, if you want to keep eating ice cream., diet sodas, etc basically all light meals.


Although it will take you longer to shop, it is a wise idea to check on the back of the packages to see the full list of ingredients and caloric value of them, at least until you get used to a certain brand of your trust.
On the nutritional value table found at the sides or back of most foods, you have a list of fats, saturated fats, lipids (sugars) and total caloric value per serving which should be a good guide to help you control the amounts of nutrients you eat

If this is for losing weight, you should also cut out fats and specially saturated fats. Saturated fats are anything that has been cooked for short or long periods on oil, like saute foods, fries, chips, snacks, . As long as the oil is raw, it is ok for you toeat 3 spoons of it per day. This is necessary to keep your intestine going ok and they also help in lowering cholesterol etc.
You can use them for seasoning salads for example.
After oil has been heated, some molecular chains break and fats in oil turn to saturated fats. So anything that has touched hot oil is not advisable.
Another tip is to eat lots of vegs (specially green crunchy ones that are the ones with more minerals and less calories - such as lettuce, raw spinach, ruculae, green peppers, etc), and also fruits, drink lots of water and of course excersise.
For more info on sweeteners, pls check
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_substitute

Answer 4

If it's for health reasons, you have to be really careful about refined sugar in foods. Most processed foods contain some refined sugars - even if you don't think they do. Crackers, some breads, chips.... Not to mention fruit juices, cough meds, coated pills, some dairy products, canned fruits and veggies.

If you're just looking to drop a few pounds, I wouldn't freak out about cutting all refined sugar out of your diet - just simply start out with cutting out sweets, sugar, soda, and regular fruit juices. You'd be surprised how much you'll shed just doing that!

Good luck!

Answer 5

read the ingredients panel on the foods you like to eat. if sugar or sweeteners of any kind other than the artificial variety are listed, you can't eat it. even "organic" sugar is refined unless labeled "raw" sugar. high fructose corn syrup, or any other syrup for that matter, are big no no's. one of the only ways you can tell for sure that you are not getting any processed sugars is to make your own foods without them. the only sugars that are ok to eat in this type of restricted diet are naturally occurring ones in fruits and vegetables, and those do not get listed separate from the fruit/vegetable in the ingredients labels.