hanadr
Expert
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I think they've out done themselves this time. I came home from a week's holiday to a pile of post including the current edition of Balance. the BDA magazine. On page 66 is an article "Always read the Label" about making healthy food choices. It refers to the way foods are labelled. I'm all for reading the labels, but this article isn't very helpful.
on Carbohydrates, it says" There are different types of carbohydrate, such as starch and sugars and this figure tells you the total amount of carbohydrate the product contains, not where it comes from".
I thought the figure is for AVAILABLE carbohydrate, excluding fibre, ( unless it's American!!") and what does it matter where it comes from?
OF which sugars:
This figure tells you how much of the carbohydrate is sugar, but doesn't tell you where the sugar comes from. It also doesn't tell you if the sugar is "Added".
There are many different types of suars, including those naturally occuring in fruit(fructose) and milk (lactose) as well as the sugar typically found in bowls(glucose). In terms of healthy eating,it is only the amount of added sugar that you need to consider.
Later in the section, they also say that ingredients with names ending in -ol are likely to be added sugar.
I was trained as a biologist and know that glucose is rarely found in bowls. and that -ols are alcohols. often polyols, used as non sugar sweeteners. Xylitol incidentally is VERY toxic to dogs, which makes me cautious of it.
Sorbitol is quite an effective laxative.
I have yet to learn that the origin of the sugar is more important in BG control that what kind of sugar it is. Glucose, whether from sports drinks or corn syrups, or cake icing or even bowls becomes BG almost instantaneously.
Most fruits store energy as fructose, but onions store sucrose.
This slackness in what should be an informative article, even if it's genuinely down to typos is unacceptable from a publication that is the organ of the BDA.
on Carbohydrates, it says" There are different types of carbohydrate, such as starch and sugars and this figure tells you the total amount of carbohydrate the product contains, not where it comes from".
I thought the figure is for AVAILABLE carbohydrate, excluding fibre, ( unless it's American!!") and what does it matter where it comes from?
OF which sugars:
This figure tells you how much of the carbohydrate is sugar, but doesn't tell you where the sugar comes from. It also doesn't tell you if the sugar is "Added".
There are many different types of suars, including those naturally occuring in fruit(fructose) and milk (lactose) as well as the sugar typically found in bowls(glucose). In terms of healthy eating,it is only the amount of added sugar that you need to consider.
Later in the section, they also say that ingredients with names ending in -ol are likely to be added sugar.
I was trained as a biologist and know that glucose is rarely found in bowls. and that -ols are alcohols. often polyols, used as non sugar sweeteners. Xylitol incidentally is VERY toxic to dogs, which makes me cautious of it.
Sorbitol is quite an effective laxative.
I have yet to learn that the origin of the sugar is more important in BG control that what kind of sugar it is. Glucose, whether from sports drinks or corn syrups, or cake icing or even bowls becomes BG almost instantaneously.
Most fruits store energy as fructose, but onions store sucrose.
This slackness in what should be an informative article, even if it's genuinely down to typos is unacceptable from a publication that is the organ of the BDA.
