[wildlifebio]

I have a question since I am pretty new to the beach. What is the difference between sugar free and no sugar added. I am having trouble finding sugar free fudge pops but can find plenty of no sugar added (sweetened with Splenda). I have noticed there are tons of no sugar added products on the market - how are these for SB?
Thanks!

[Sheba's Mom]

No sugar added and sugar free can be confusing until you get the hang of it. Some foods have natually occuring sugars in them. And those are typically good sugars as your body knows what to do with it. For example: Tomatoes. Tomatoes have natural sugars in them so if you are looking for a tomato sauce look for one that even though it shows sugar grams in the nutrition section of the lable it doesn't have any listed in the ingredients.

Dairy is another that has natural sugar in it. So your fudge pops can't ever be "sugar free" but they can be "no sugar added". The can't say they are sugar free because it isn't true but they can call it no sugar added because they didn't add any to it when they made the fudge pops.


Hope this helps.

[beachgal]

Great job explaining, Sheba's Mom!

Wildlifebio, this really *is* a confusing topic! But your instincts are right, No Sugar Added (NSA) products are usually fine for us. With SBD, what you need to do is check the ingredients list first. If it has the words "partially hydrogenated" followed by some kind of fat/oil, put that puppy down and back away! Otherwise, keep reading. See "enriched" followed by some kind of flour? Toss that puppy back in the bin and keep looking. If you see "sugar", any word ending in "-ose" (that's a form of sugar), or, worst of all, "high fructose corn syrup", check where it is on the list to get a feel for how much of it there is. Most of the time, if you see this in the ingredient list, the item isn't SBD-safe, but sometimes there's so little of it, you won't have a problem, or you'll be eating so little of it (like Cool Whip Free) that it doesn't matter.

In general, don't pay attention to the grams of sugar (and you never have to worry about grams of carbs, ever. It could have 1,000,000 grams of carbs, as long as it fits the SBD guidelines, you can have it. ), as they can lead you astray...pay attention to the ingredients. The only caveat to this is when buying dressing--then you need the grams of sugar to help you pick the SBD-safe ones. My poor DH falls for the sugar gram trick every time...he goes to buy something for me, then reads that it has 22g of sugar, and puts it back. Go figure, the sugar is often naturally occuring sugars from milk, fruit, whole grains, etc. I keep trying to get him to remember to look at ingredients, but he's not got it yet. That's okay...I'll keep trying, and remember how blessed I am that he's shopping to begin with!