If you have diabetes or are at risk for developing diabetes, monitoring the amount of sugar you consume each day is a crucial element of maintaining a healthy weight and blood sugar level and therefore a healthy heart. Desserts, some beverages, and sweets all include added sugars that may cause weight gain and a rapid rise in blood sugar levels, so it’s best to limit your intake of these foods.
Reducing your sugar intake can be less of a struggle than you imagine.
Take advantage of these suggestions to reduce your sugar intake:
- Put the white and brown sugar, syrup, honey, and molasses in the trash. Reducing the quantity of sugar in products like cereal, pancakes, coffee, and tea may help you lose weight. Reduce the quantity of sugar you normally add by half and go from there if necessary.
- Replace the drink with something else. Diet drinks are a good alternative to sugary beverages if you’re seeking to cut down on calories without sacrificing taste.
- Consume fruit in any of its many forms, including fresh, frozen, dried, and canned varieties. Select canned fruit that has been packed in water or pure juice. It’s best to stay away from canned fruit that’s been preserved in syrup, particularly thick syrup. When there’s too much syrup or juice, just drain and rinse in a colander.
- Look at the nutritional labels and choose the foods with the fewest added sugars. Naturally occurring sugars may be found in foods like dairy and fruit. Look for the word “sugar” in the ingredient list to see whether there is any added sugar.
- Incorporate some fruit. Add fresh fruit (bananas, cherries, or strawberries) or dried fruit to your cereal or oatmeal instead of sugar (raisins, cranberries or apricots).
- Limit your intake. Reduce the amount of sugar in your favourite cookie, brownie, or cake recipes by a third to half. In most cases, you won’t even notice a difference.
- Use extracts if possible. Extracts such as almond, vanilla, orange, and lemon may be used in place of sugar in cooking.
- Substitute it out entirely. Substitute spices for sugar to sweeten your cuisine. You can’t go wrong with spices like ginger, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- Substitute. You may use unsweetened applesauce in place of sugar (in the same proportions) in any recipe calling for sweetener. Non-nutritive sweeteners might be a quick and easy way to satisfy your sweet desire while on a diet. But be careful! Be wary that switching from sugar to a low-calorie or no-calorie sweetener today can result in binge eating later.
