THE DEMONISATION OF SUGAR
Fifty years ago, sugar was a good in anybody’s language. Sweetness was equivalent to goodness and Sweetheart was a name we called our closest loved ones. In the 1970s, as a student of food science and technology, I learned how refined sugar (sucrose) was an important preservative, a flavour enhancer in small amounts, and an …
FRUIT, ADDED SUGARS AND CARDIOMETABOLIC RISK
With few exceptions, whole fruit is a good source of vitamins (e.g., A, B and C), minerals (e.g., magnesium and potassium), antioxidants (e.g., flavonoids and phenolic acids) and dietary fibre (e.g., cellulose and pectins), and has a relatively low energy density. It is therefore probably not a surprise to read that regular fruit consumption has …
FRUIT AND DIABETES
If you have diabetes or are at risk, you may be confused about fruit. Is it a healthy choice or something you should be avoiding due to its sugar content? It is true that fruit contains natural fruit sugars but in whole fruit this is packaged along with fibre, vitamins and minerals. This makes it …
SWEET HISTORY
“Sugar and spice and everything nice that’s what little girls are made of…” Robert Southey Long before the recent association of sugar with words such as “toxic” or “poison”, sugars and sweetness were used as terms of endearment or affection amongst people of all ages: Cupcake Honey (bun / pie) Peaches Sugar bun / babe …
SWEET SENSATIONS
“I just feel like something sweet…” I’m often asked by clients, ‘What’s something sweet I can eat that isn’t too bad for me? They’re looking for something to answer the cries of their dessert stomach or pep them up from the 3pm slump. While fruit is an obvious suggestion (2-3 serves are recommended every day), …
SWEET AS HONEY
There’s really no way of denying it; humans love sweetness. This natural attraction to foods with energy is imprinted on our DNA and has ensured our survival. Sweet foods are a pleasure and fuel. These days we tend not to need as much fuel as in previous, pre-industrial times and yet our taste for sweet …
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GI News – July 2021
GI News is published online by the University of Sydney, School of Life and Environmental Sciences and the Charles Perkins Centre, and delivered to the mailboxes of our 98,000 subscribers. Our goal is to help people choose the high-quality carbs that are digested at a rate that our bodies can comfortably accommodate and to share …
WHAT IS RESISTANT STARCH? IS IT GOOD OR BAD FOR US?
Short answer: It’s good and we should eat more of it. But what is it and where can we find more? Resistant starch is just like it sounds – starch that resists digestion in the small intestine. Like many things in science, it was discovered by accident by John Cummings and colleagues at the MRC …
STARCH LINGO: RAPIDLY DIGESTED STARCH, RESISTANT STARCH AND SLOWLY DIGESTED STARCH
Carbohydrates include the maltodextrins, starches and sugars that we are able to digest and absorb to provide our bodies with fuel such as glucose, plus dietary fibre that provides bulk for laxation and importantly is also a fuel for our gut microbiome. Starch is mostly found in traditional staple foods such as cereal grains, roots …
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