There have been recent changes in the UK dietary recommendations reported in the media. I find myself confused by some of the messaging attached to what seems like a jumble of statistics and percentages, so in this post I will share the important changes to sugars, what they mean and why they have been made.
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) have released a report to the government, basing all of their recommendations on strong scientific evidence. The UK Department of Health has adopted this dietary guidance for carbohydrates, sugars and fibre. This is great news because it is being officially recognised that reducing free sugars* and increasing fibre can reduce our risk significantly for many types of cancers , heart disease, diabetes, obesity etc.
Carbohydrates - 50% total dietary energy
The amount of carbohydrates we can consume has been increased. The report stated that diets higher in ‘total carbohydrate’ and links to weight gain were not supported by the evidence. However the most important changes are to the sugar and fibre guidance within total carbohydrates.
No more than 5% of total dietary energy should come from free sugars…
The SACN review reported that higher consumption of sugar, food and drinks containing sugars resulted in tooth decay, increase in type 2 diabetes as well as weight gain in children and adults. This is most likely not new information for you, but we can celebrate this being included in national guidance as a step forward in our understanding of nutrition.
So what is 5% and what are free sugars?
If you are an adult female this will mean that you should be consuming no more than 80-90 calories or 20-25g of free sugars (approximately 30g or 6 teaspoons) adult males and 18g or just less than 4 teaspoons for children). ‘Free sugars’ are defined as those sugars added into foods by manufacturers or ourselves, including in tea, coffee, sugary drinks in addition to sugars naturally present in honey, syrups and fruit juices. This does not include whole foods which include natural sugars e.g. fruit or lactose (the natural sugar found in milk).
*”all monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook, or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, and fruit juices”.
WHO 2015
Examples of amount of free sugars contained within food products:
- 1 can of coke 33g
- 30g bowl of bought standard chocolate cereal 12g
- 1 average milk chocolate bar 23g
- 1 medium glass of fresh orange 24g
You can check your food label by looking at the amount of carbohydrates of which sugars per 100g, then calculating how many grams of sugar is in the serving size e.g. 10g of sugar per 100g would mean in a serving of 50g there would be 5g of sugar.
I hope this has helped you understand the first of the UK dietary recommendations. I will be following this post with a further post on the changes to fibre recommendations, then with fat and protein.
As always, please do not hesitate to ask or comment if you have any questions.
Love and health
Kelly x
Notes:
The new recommendation values for total carbohydrates, sugars and starches are made in the
context of an energy intake that is appropriate to maintain a healthy weight (SACN, 2011) and are
in relation to the average population intake for the age groups from 2 years upwards.
References
ï The full SACN report is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445503/SACN_Carbohydrates_and_Health.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment