Haven’t I been saying this for years? I would rather you had a small amount of ‘proper’ sugar than kid yourself by drinking and eating lots of artificially-sweetened stuff!

OK, neither is good for you, but people do tend to think they can have more if a product says ‘low sugar’ on it or even ‘low fat’. If a product does say that, it invariably has artificial sweetener instead as they have to make you like it somehow. I literally groan inside when someone says: ‘it’s OK, I’m eating “healthy ready meals” or ‘”low sugar pop”‘. Aargh.

I debate with myself whether to say ‘well done’ or ‘Nooooooo. I’d rather you ate proper food, not processed!’. As a nutritionist, you don’t want to diss anyone’s attempts to eat more healthily, but in this case it is a bit Hobson’s Choice because I know that ultimately it won’t make a jot of real long-term difference and, in fact, will probably confuse the poor pancreas so much, it will be worse in the long run.

My advice is always to eat proper food, not messed-about-with food ie. processed and marketed to make you feel you’re doing something better. Invariably, you’re not. Sorry. If you want something sweet, have something sweet and enjoy it, but 80% of the time, eat properly and you will be far healthier than relying on ‘low sugar’ aka usually artificially-sweetened or so-called ‘low fat’ meals. ‘Proper’ food is low sugar and low fat most of the time: see my Low GL Lose Your Belly Fat’ diet here.

Ok, lecture over. Here’s the piece from WDDTY that started me off:

Diet drinks can make you fat