I was forced to look at my sugar intake and it scared me.

Earlier  this year I was browsing the Guardian website and stumbled upon this article about ‘Fed Up’ , an upcoming documentary by Laurie David highlighting the dangers of consuming too much sugar.

I found it pretty interesting, but never looked out for the documentary, and it certainly didn’t inspire me to make a change in my eating/drinking habits.

However, recently I’ve been forced to review my diet (due to a very irritating bacteria overgrowth in my stomach) and I’ve really started to pay attention to the amount of sugar I consume and it’s scary.

Most of us think that fat is THE enemy on our mission to eat ‘healthily’ but it seems fat is not the worst culprit. We are all pretty well educated on the fat content of foods whereas this isn’t the case with sugar. There are hidden sugars in almost EVERYTHING we eat. It sucks. I’m not saying all sugar is bad, our bodies need sugar, but it’s added sugar that is the problem. Because there are so many hidden sugars in products we wouldn’t class as ‘sweet’ we have no idea how much we are eating, there can even be added sugar in meat we buy from supermarkets!

Sugar is much more sneaky and addictive than fat and, in a particularly evil twist, it is proven that the more sugary foods we eat the more our body craves it. So we keep reaching for these sugary foods without realising because, like salt, sugar is used to make foods lacking in flavour (i.e. cheap and processed) taste good. Combined with the fact that complex names are used to disguise how much sugar these foods contain, it can be almost impossible to keep track of your intake. Some nutritionists say that if sugar was discovered today then it would be classed as a prescription drug and not be readily available to the public because of it’s addictive nature and health risks.

So how do we reduce the amount of sugar we consume without life becoming, well, boring? I love going out for brunch, drinking booze and partying just as much as I love yoga, running and quinoa. Constantly being careful just doesn’t appeal.  Right now I have to be pretty strict and it is a bit boring but something good will definitely come out of this. I’ll now be able to make more informed choices about what I put in my body. I will make bad choices but it’ll be my choice and I’ll understand the effects it’ll have.  After all, we can’t (and don’t want to) be good all the time.

If you need a bit of inspiration check back on Pavement Bound as Mirka’s got some great healthy recipes you can try.  Her quinoa bars are SO good http://pavementbound.com/2014/11/bars-days/

Further reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david/fda-sugar-measurements-teaspoons_b_6098194.html

 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/06/17/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sugar/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27941325