Six tips to help you cut back on sugar

Too much sugar in your diet can have a major impact on your health. It increases your risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, liver disease, tooth decay and gum disease, while also disrupting your energy levels, ageing your skin and making it harder to maintain a healthy weight. 

Cutting back on sugar can, therefore, bring many health and wellness benefits. However, it can be challenging to make such a significant change to your diet. 

Here are six easy ways to help reduce the amount of sugar in your diet: 

1. Don’t add extra sugar

Adding a teaspoon of sugar, honey or syrup to your tea, coffee, porridge or cereal adds up over the course of a week. 

If you find it challenging to completely stop adding sugar to your drinks and meals in one go, try cutting down gradually. Go from two teaspoons to one, one to half, and so on. Your palate will soon adjust so you can eventually go without any added sugar. 

2. Avoid fruit yoghurts, even the low-fat kind

Flavoured yoghurts are often high in sugar. This is especially true for low-fat flavoured yoghurts where extra sugar is added to compensate for the loss of flavour when fat is removed. 

However, you can still enjoy low-fat yoghurt while cutting back on sugar by opting for natural (ie unflavoured) low-fat yoghurt. 

3. Don’t start the day with high-sugar cereals

Many cereals that may initially appear healthy as they are high in fibre and fortified with vitamins, minerals and iron, are often high in sugar. Always check the labelling and opt for wholegrain cereals with no added sugar. 

4. Switch to diet or ‘no added sugar’ drinks

When it comes to healthy living, water is the best drink for your body. However, if you enjoy fizzy drinks and fruit choices, you can still reduce your sugar intake by opting for diet fizzy drinks and ‘no added sugar’ fruit juices. 

5. Avoid tinned fruit in syrup

Although fruits contain natural sugars, they also contain many nutrients, vitamins and minerals, which are essential for a healthy diet. 

To enjoy a variety of fruits without raising your sugar levels too much, avoid eating tinned fruit in syrup and instead, choose fresh fruit or tinned fruit in natural juice.

6. Swap ketchup for low-sugar condiments

Many sauces such as tomato ketchup, chilli sauce and BBQ sauce are high in sugar and can easily increase the amount of sugar you consume in a single meal. 

Try swapping them out for low-sugar alternatives such as mayonnaise, pesto, tahini, mustard, hummus and guacamole.