Eating for Energy (Part 2)

Breakfast Cereals

All breakfast cereals are a good source of energy-giving carbohydrates, and many have also been fortified with extra vitamins and minerals, particularly iron. The main factors to consider when making your choice are the cereal’s sugar, salt and fibre content. If possible, choose those with little or no added sugar and avoid very sweet, sugar-coated varieties. It would be better to not sprinkle sugar on your cereal; add chopped fresh fruit or few raisins as alternatives.

Salt or sodium content is displayed on the label of most cereals, and it is worth comparing varieties – some processed brands contain a surprisingly large amount.

The fibre content also varies. Muesli and wholegrain of bran cereals are very good sources of fibre, but some more refined cereals contain almost none. Oat bran is used in some cereals and can help to reduce cholesterol. Again, reading labels will soon reveal the pros and cons of different brands.

Another way of controlling what’s in your cereal is to buy plain oat or wheat flakes and add you own extras – it can be cheaper too.


How Safe Are Sweeteners?

Many foods in the supermarket now contain artificial sweeteners, such as confectionary products, sauces, canned beans and even chewing gum.

Two types of artificial sweeteners:

1. ‘Intense’ Sweeteners, e.g. aspartame, acesulfame-K and saccharin.
   
   • Used in very tiny quantities in many low-calorie food products.
     
     
2. ‘Bulk’ Sweeteners, e.g. sorbitol and mannitol.
   
   • Used in ‘tooth friendly’ sweets and diabetic food.

An official body – Committee on Toxicity (COT) has set and Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for sweeteners; an amount believed to be safe on the basis of current knowledge. However, ADIs are based on animal research and are difficult to use in practice, the best advice for consumers is to check the ingredients list on the label – though this will not tell you how much is used – and to vary your sweeteners to reduce the risk of exceeding the ADI for any one type.

There is a theory that some people gain more weight because low-sugar products do not satisfy the body’s need for calories, and so appetite increases, but this has not been proven. It is important to remember that foods containing artificial sweeteners may still be high in fat, and fat contains more than twice as many calories, weight for weight, as sugar does.

Two Types of Sugars

Intrinsic Sugars
These so-called intrinsic sugars, which are contained within the cell walls of plants, are a natural, healthy part of the diet. They occur primarily in fruit, grains and sweet-tasting vegetables, such as carrots and beetroot. As they come packaged with fibre, there is a limit to how much of them you can eat. They also come together with valuable amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Extrinsic Sugars
These sugars, which are not contained within the cell walls of plants, include refined sugar products, such as table sugar, syrup and glucose, as well as honey molasses, malt and the sugar in milk. The sugar in fruit juice is extrinsic too since the fruit cells are ruptured in juicing. Jams and other products sweetened with concentrated fruit juice may not have had any sugar added to them but they can still be very high in extrinsic sugar from the juice – nutritionally, it amounts to the same thing. You can get far more calories, and far faster, from honey, table sugar, syrup, jam, concentrated juice or sweetened products that you can from whole apples, bread or carrots.

Extrinsic sugars are also more likely to attack your teeth, and most of us would do well to cut down. One exception is milk sugar (lactose), which does not damage teeth. Nutritionists refer to NMEs (non-milk extrinsic sugars) in order to distinguish only the types likely to be harmful to teeth, where there is good reason to cut down – not the case with lactose.

There is no need, however, to become obsessed with avoiding all NMEs. If the added sugar in products such as baked beans makes a basically healthy food more palatable to you, do not worry – the effect is negligible.