Ever since I was about 7 years old I've started the day with a big bowl of muesli covered in milk, then as I've got older covered in soya milk (whey doesn't agree with me so no milk or cream in my life).
But as my mornings are a slower affair than they used to be I've been eating "pink por with yeah yeahs." Or to a normal person, porridge with jam and a few raisins chucked on top (we've no idea why Ev calls raisins "yeah yeahs" but we're fairly sure it's on of those names that's going to stick!).
As I'm sat there munching away I've been feeling a little guilty about having a teaspoon full of home-made jam on top of mine (the girls only get enough to colour theirs) and thinking about how much sugar that is.
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| 30g of sugar |
I then looked at my normal muesli and read how much sugar that contains - Average serving 13.3g of sugar. The trouble is I easily have three times what they call a "average" serving, and I know it's this much because I weighed it! That means that on average I'm having over 30g of sugar for breakfast!
It makes a teaspoonful of home-made jam on my bowl of porridge look much better and I'm also controlling what goes into the jam (sugar and fruit). This isn't even looking at the fact that a big bag of porridge oats last about five times as long as a box of muesli and costs a fraction of the price!
Anyone else been shocked when they've looked into what they've eaten lately and changed their habits because of it?
I feel we do a good job keeping sugar amounts down. We use organic sugar , but organic or not sugar is still a processed food, we use organic to avoid getting GMO but its still processed food and we try to limit those in our diets. I have a muffin recipe that is so healthy the only negative in the whole recipe is 3/4 cup or organic sugar. This recipe makes 24 muffins. So over all I feel like the 3/4 cups of organic sugar can be tolerated. The muffins are loaded with Omega 3s , organic pumpkin puree lots of nutrition in that as well, walnut oil and walnuts, organic flax seed meal. I use organic whole grain spelt flour. It even has a 1/2 tsp of turmeric which is so good for us in it.. you never know its in there.. clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger. We are not big sweet eaters but these we enjoy. If I am going to eat breakfast cereal its thick cut organic oats, I like to take those and organic quinoa cook them with some dried cranberries, then add a dollop of grass fed butter and tbls of pure maple syrup (organic if I can get it). I think its plenty sweet with the maple syrup in it. the Quinoa is so loaded in protein it helps to offset the carbs in the oats. :O) You don't even know the quinoa is in there as it just taste like oats with cranberries butter, maple syrup. I think its as much the type of food or the quality maybe I should say of the food ... Like regular butter, full of growth hormones, antibiotics, cows fed with GMO food etc .... is not at all the same to our body as organic grass fed, hormone free, antibiotic feed, butter. Two different things. It is hard to stay ahead of the crap that is put in food. Here in the US its sad what is allowed put in food or sold as food! The grocery shelves are full of non nutritive chemical laden processed stuff that they call food, which has no nutritive value to the human body and actually will cause so many diseases ... just sad I tell ya... LOL can you tell this is sort of a pet peeve of mine :O)...
ReplyDeleteMy trouble is I have such a sweet tooth, there's no chance I could give up! It gives me so much energy that I need. I just want to be aware of what I'm putting in and also it comes as a shock when you think something is healthy and its not! Your muffins sound nice I might have to try and make those with the girls at some point.
DeleteIn the UK everything is quite well labelled but you have to know where to look and be looking for it. so many people just don't care what they eat!
No kidding! We've cut fat and sugar in our vegan diet and are both healthier for it
ReplyDeleteJane x
I just don't think I could do it at the moment. I love chocolate too much.
DeleteKev - us too - we are all eating MUCH less sugar that ever before and we feel heaps better for it. We try to use only honey or maple syrup (very small amount) and in baking we use organic cane sugar (no more than half of the called for amount). You get sued to it - I now put NOTHING on my oatmeal to sweeten it but when I first started cutting back on sugar, I found it hard to have only a few TBSP of sweetener. Now I honestly prefer it with none.
ReplyDeleteI've never like honey although I think I'm going to have to learn as I want to keep bees at some point! with me it's about the texture of porridge, I need fried fruit in it to break up the chewing!
DeleteI like my tea sweet so I use Stevia, I have started growing my own Stevia and succesfully brought it through the winter, Sugar I tend to use in jams and such like as unfortunatly I havent found a way of making jam without it. Honey I tend to use on porridge and if ever I have shop cereal I dont add any sugar to it, I did try a bit of an experiment last year with some sucess at making my own cornflakes, home mixed museli is fairly easy to make up, I find it more difficult to get hubby to change he likes his cereals in the morning hatea porridge so its sugar laden breakfast for him.
ReplyDeleteWe eat a lot of jam but it's all home made so that's a bonus. The trouble is sugar is a wonderful preserve and great to help us keep produce. If there was another tasty way I'd use it. I want to start bottling like the Americans do as a way of preserving fruit as well.
DeleteIt's shocking how much sugar is in today's food. My daughter has to follow a dairy,egg and gluten free diet but the substitute foods are packed full of sugar and things you need a chemistry degree to understand. I found a really good blog and app called Deliciously Ella that produces some fantastic recipes that don't use sugar or any of the above for some great cakes and bakes.
ReplyDeleteMy sister had to cut sugar out for six months and I remember just thinking that I couldn't do it! I'll put her on to that blog as she sill can't have dairy. thanks!
DeleteNow going off to see how much sugar is in Cs Muesli and my 1 weetabix!
ReplyDeleteI bet you win that one!
DeleteI can't eat much wheat so started making my own muesli ( you can get own brand muesli with no added sugar and salt but it's got wheatflakes in it). I buy the cheapest oats at the supermarket and buy dried fruit, seeds and nuts at the wholesalers or in the supermarket's baking aisle (cheaper than the snack aisle). I don't add sugar and we got used to it.
ReplyDeleteIt's the getting used to it that's difficult! We love our dried fruit though - I'm going to make an effort to dry more this year to use on breakfast and things.
DeleteYou could make your own Museli with sugar free ingredients and you can control what goes in there. If you put more nuts in this increases the protein content and should sustain you for longer so that you do not need to eat as much. We have swapped to the fruit spreads that are made with more fruit and apple juice concentrate rather than sugar, (it is very easy to make too) - although in the end any type of sugars even fruit sugars turn to glucose!
ReplyDeleteI'll have to look up how to make those fruit spreads as they sound good and something different. As for making my own muesli I've tried it before and can never get it the same but I guess that due to the sugar!
DeleteTry reducing the sugar slowly so you eventually don't miss it - mix a no sugar variety with an added sugar one for a while making the proportion half and half and then begin reducing the proportion of the added sugar one gradually. Or add more dried fruit to gain that sweetness.
DeleteYes, we switched lots of things in our diets when LH was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes a couple of years ago.
ReplyDeleteMake your own muesli, it's so simple and can be tailored to what you fancy, what's on offer in the shops and simply for a change. All it is really is a base of porridge oats, some dried fruits, chopped nuts and basically anything you fancy all mixed together and stored in a tub or jar.
I used to make enough to last about a month at a time, but then I won all those Dorset Cereals so we're eating our way through them at the moment, but not every day.
Processed sugar is the one 'food' that we don't need at all, there is plenty of naturally occurring sweetness in fruits and some veggies.
that must change everything! I always worry thats the way I'll go if I'm not careful as I do have a high sugar intake (very high), my excuse is I burn it off but there must be better ways of having the same amount of instant energy! At least I'm not like the guys at work who drink energy drink after energy drink!
DeleteInteresting post. We've had a very hard time breaking the packaged breakfast cereal habit. I love it with my kefir! I crave it with my kefir. It's just such an easy breakfast! But. The ingredients are stuff we really shouldn't be eating, they aren't cheap, and then there's all that packaging to dispose of! I'm really, really trying to go for homemade breakfasts, even if it's peanut butter and homemade jam on homemade toasted bread. Habits are hard to change.
ReplyDeleteI think it being so easy is what makes it so good and I know what you mean about habits hard to break. I've eaten pretty much the same thing for breakfast for over 20 years!
DeleteProcessed food is so deceiving! I recently read an article that said most flavored yogurts (even the 'healthy' fat-free kind) have more sugar than a Twinkie! These days you aren't safe unless you stick to all homemade food!
ReplyDeleteWe used to buy a 25lb bag of white sugar from our local buying club and would go through it in just a few months. Now that we eat healthier and are more aware of what's lurking in our food, we only go through a 4lb bag of organic cane sugar in a longer amount time. And most of that goes in our coffee- something I simply cannot drink without regular sugar (I've tried!)
Well I have no coffee or tea so I suppose that's one good point but I do love my sugar. I binge at night on dark and white chocolate and it's something I really need to stop! We do eat a lot of homemade things but even that has lots of sugar!
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