So, you are trying to cut down on sugar in your diet either because you want to, or because you need to due to excess weight, fatty liver or a diabetes diagnosis. How can you still get a sweet fix, while not blowing your sugar intake off the charts?
Let me start with this – fruit juice is not an option for you. By juicing, you have concentrated all the sugars in the fruit into a liquid, removed the fibrous material, and ingested far more sugar than you would have done if you had sat down and ate a selection of fruits.
Also, just because a fruit tastes sweet, doesn’t mean the sugar levels are high (trick of the taste buds).
Data may differ if these fruits have been preserved, dried, canned or frozen – so be careful. This information specifically relates to fresh fruit. Also take into consideration your serving sizes – eating a kilogram of berries in one sitting is probably not the wisest thing to do – however tempting that may be!
So here we go…
Low sugar fruits – most berries (strawberries/raspberries/blueberries), lemons, oranges, avocado, kiwifruit, watermelon, peaches, pineapple, rockmelons, plums, olives, apricots.
And before you ask – if you dip your fruit in melted chocolate – no, that is no longer low sugar – even if you have used really good chocolate!
Now for the higher sugar fruits – anything that has been juiced, canned in syrup, sweetened, dried fruits, grapes, some apples (many are ok), bananas, figs, mango, pears.
If you are trying to cut sugar, yes, you are better having a fresh fruit rather than chocolate, muffins or fizzy drinks. It can be challenging, but you need to start somewhere. Just start. You don’t need to do this on your own.