Life sweet when sugar reduced

Water is the best option for kids as a link has been established between sugary drink consumption and a child's risk of becoming overweight or obese. PHOTO/JOHN BORREN

A recent report shows one in four Bay of Plenty children between 2 and 14 are overweight. Bay locals looking to keep their kids healthy and stave off winter weight gain may be scrutinising food labels more than ever. New voluntary guidelines announced last year mean you may have already seen packaged foods with star ratings. Another method, the traffic light system, has also been trialled. With different methods of explaining what's in our food, how do you know what's healthy and what's not? Dawn Picken asked nutrition experts for guidelines.

Registered dietitian Emma McMichael recommends clients choose food and drinks with fewer than 10g of sugar per 100g of product.

"That's based on the Heart Foundation recommendation," she says.

McMichael, who manages a business called Focus on Food, says common high-sugar foods include soft drinks, which may contain sugar in the forms of sucrose and fructose. "Sugar at the moment is topical," she said.

"People like to say it's toxic, but in reasonable amounts, it's certainly not toxic."

She says not all sugars are equal, and encourages consumption of natural sugars found in fruit and dairy products.

"Choose foods on the perimeter of the supermarket - fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, not in the middle where the packaged foods are."

Studies show Kiwis eat too much sugar - four or five times more than recommended daily amounts. The World Health Organisation says sugar is linked to being overweight, obesity and tooth decay. WHO guidelines say our diets should contain no more than 10 per cent refined sugar.

Registered Dietitian Fiona Boyle, who runs Food Solutions, tells clients each 4g of sugar per 100g of product equal a teaspoon of sugar.

"If it says there's 24g of sugar in 100g - there's six teaspoons of sugar."

Sugar is just one aspect of nutrition labelling.

"It's not advisable to pay attention to one nutrient, you have to look at the overall diet. If someone's really worried about their weight, look at total calorie intake. Look for something with less energy [calories or kilojoules] and keep up the fibre intake."

We need 30 per cent of our intake from good fats, so low-fat is not necessarily a good idea.

Joanne Andrews

Boyle advises at least 5g of fibre per 100g of product.

"Also pay attention to how many servings there are. The bad example is soft drinks. There's more than one serving in a 600ml bottle of soft drink, but everyone who buys it thinks there's one serving."

As for the growing popularity of gluten-free food, Mrs Boyle says even though coeliac disease is under-diagnosed, blood tests mean more people are aware of their condition, and coeliacs must adhere to a gluten-free diet.

"Quite a few people need to go gluten-free or low-gluten, but for me it's always making sure people get the correct diagnosis. Make sure you're not an undiagnosed coeliac before going gluten-free, because it's not a cheap alternative."

Some Bay residents are modifying the Cancer Society's "Junk Free June", a fundraiser challenging people to give up junk foods this month.

Joanne Andrews, a weight loss coach who facilitates Resolution Retreats (health retreats for women) from a resort in the Papamoa Ranges, says she and her husband have gone one step further, eliminating refined sugar from their diets.

"I still eat fruit. My morning tea is sliced apple with natural peanut butter, and that tastes incredibly sweet to me at the moment."

Mrs Andrews says she was surprised her husband wanted to take the challenge, too.
"He's already dropped a few kilos. Quite often, he would have chocolate after dinner at night, and he's nipped that in the bud.

"Not having sugar in his coffee is another one. Also, no alcohol - no glass of wine and no beers."

Choose foods on the perimeter of the supermarket - fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, not in the middle where the packaged foods are.

Emma McMichael

For people still craving sugar, Resolution Retreat coordinator Joelene Ranby suggests gradually eliminating added sugar - swap warm milk for Milo, and replace sugary drinks with Stevia-sweetened water.

"It's about slowly changing the palate," she says.

Mrs Andrews says dieters can hurt their cause by cutting too much fat.

"We need 30 per cent of our intake from good fats, so low-fat is not necessarily a good idea."

Mrs Andrews says healthy fats help in vitamin absorption and keep you feeling fuller longer.

Food labels list ingredients in descending order of weight, including additives and preservatives.

Rating system
- Foods with the Health Star Rating System are appearing on stores shelves in New Zealand. The voluntary programme is designed to make it easier for consumers to make healthy, informed choices.
- The system uses a star rating scale of to five stars. Foods with more stars are said to have better nutritional value. The number of stars associated with each food is determined by an algorithm that considers overall nutritional value of the food - not just one aspect, such as sugar or fat content.
- The star system has met with scepticism from food experts and nutritionists, who say it is not the best option to help consumers. They criticised the Government for ignoring research on what works best.
-Foodstuffs, which owns Pak'nSave, New World and Four Square stores, announced Pams and Budget product packaging will include the Government's Health Star Rating.
- New Zealand food products company Sanitarium states on its website it fully supports the Health Star Rating System, and that 80 per cent of its products have at least a four-star rating.