Eating well and exercise are the major pillars of “Be Healthy,” the sixth of my Six Simple Rules. Whenever I give suggestions for ways to be a healthier eater, I quickly mention giving up soda, as I did in this post Soda is Poison.
Diet soda is also poison, as I have written about here, even though it doesn’t have sugar.
Sugar has become a kind of health “enemy number one” over the past few years, and the pandemic helped make clear how important it is to focus on reducing sugar consumption (as this article about the diabetes crisis explains.)
Here are several of the ideas from a New York Times piece 3 Ways to Eat Less Sugar:
Read labels. “Food makers sneak sugar into more foods than you may realize (including) chicken stock, soup, salami, smoked salmon, tortillas and crackers.”
Avoid morning dessert. Breakfast cereals tend to be packed with sugar. As I have written in a prior post, my cereal of choice came about as a result of a mission I undertook to eat less added sugar. (The brand of muesli I buy has naturally occurring sugar from raisins and dried date pieces, but no added sugar of any kind.) I tried numerous cereals (mostly granola) before I settled on muesli. While I found some granola brands without a ton of added sugar, even the least sugary of them made for a delicious snack—too delicious to resist. And thus, my rule: if your cereal is tasty enough that you would eat it as a snack, it’s the wrong cereal.
Non-sugary snacks. The Times piece suggests nuts, popcorn, fresh fruit, and snack bars without added sugars.
The Times also published this more comprehensive guide to getting sugar out of your diet.
Stay well,
David