Sweet choices
The sweet treats of Easter! Lots of sugar-laden ‘goodies’ ranging from beautifully wrapped eggs to seasonal shaped chocolates. Often lots of chocolates, many with sticky fillings.
In the UK we love our festive chocolate! But we’re not alone. Many celebrations all around the world also include sweet delicacies of one kind or another. And it’s okay if it’s a special occasion.
But let’s be clear about this: Sweet treats should not become an everyday snack!
Why do we love sugar?
It could be that our love for sugar is part of our evolutionary inheritance, and that a sweet tooth helped survival. Our bodies break down sugar into glucose and fructose. Glucose from ripe fruit gave hunter-gatherers a quick energy boost. And the fructose helped store fat. Both helped our ancestors to survive. Moreover, as sugar triggers a dopamine boost too, sugar addiction could well be one of our inherited predispositions. It’s an interesting theory and goes some way to explaining why we love sugar, even if we know it’s not good for us.
These days, however, the modern-day marketing of consumables that are easy to eat and drink on the move or when we feel we’re too busy to prepare food from scratch, has increased sugar consumption.
In our modern world, sugar continues to boost our energy but it’s portion control that is the problem. Too much is damaging to our health and our oral health. With media focus on rising levels of obesity, we are advised that sugar should only be a ‘treat’, taken in small quantities at meal times.
The government recommends that free sugars – sugars added to food or drinks, and sugars found naturally in honey, syrups, and unsweetened fruit and vegetable juices, smoothies and purées – should not make up more than 5% of the energy (calories) you get from food and drink each day.
This means:
- Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day, (roughly equivalent to 7 sugar cubes).
- Children aged 7 to 10 should have no more than 24g of free sugars a day (6 sugar cubes).
- Children aged 4 to 6 should have no more than 19g of free sugars a day (5 sugar cubes).
- There’s no guideline limit for children under the age of 4, but it’s recommended they avoid sugar-sweetened drinks and food with sugar added to it.
Sweet things we don’t notice
Many products include sugar we don’t really know about. When we eat our breakfast cereal, or open a can of soup or drink from a packet of something that could be orange juice, we are most likely taking in sugar we don’t need. We’ve all heard about ‘hidden’ sugars, but how much attention should we pay to them?
The answer is – more than we probably do! Certainly, we may notice the ‘no added sugar’ tag, and opt for that choice. But does it mean it’s sugar free? Only reading the very small print will help you to find out. Other products that we think of as savoury, such as soup and bread, may even contain added sugar.
What can we do?
For example, compare these two labels from Easter eggs from two leading companies.
The Cadbury Dairy Milk egg has 4g / 100g less sugar than the Nestle Aero egg.
The advice on the Aero egg is spot on though.
“Know your servings.”
“Share or save your chocolate egg.”
Why don’t dentist’s love sugar?
Modern dentistry is committed to preventive dentistry. We want children to keep their healthy teeth for life. Modern dental health care products (toothpastes, mouth wash, and floss) all help to prevent tooth decay.
For both children and adults, a routine examination at the dentists is a way to check for early predictors of dental decay.
Sweet treats: Are they worth it?