I don't take sugar in my tea, why should I want it in my crisps?

I don't take sugar in my tea, why should I want it in my crisps?

Of course, it's nothing to do with what I want; it's all about what works for food manufacturers.

And the truth is that adding sugar makes the most unlikely foods taste better. If food tastes better people buy it and the food manufacturers sell more, which is why you find added sugar in bread (including wholemeal - healthy - bread), in yoghurt, in baked beans, even in a packet of crisps.

I was staggered to find there was over 11g of added sugar in a small pot of strawberry-flavoured Actimel pro-biotic yogurt, as much as a Twirl chocolate bar and the equivalent to two teaspoons of sugar.

No-one would think of adding two teaspoons of sugar to a shot of yoghurt, but you don't need to because Danone has done it for you. They tell you what they've done, of course, but you have to read the packet quite carefully to find out and you have to appreciate that 11g of sugar is about two teaspoons. I only know this because Sam and Lucy bought me some high-tech scales for Christmas.

You'll guess from this grumbling introduction that I'm on a diet and that it's making me a bit miserable. I'm compensating by creating a more and more detailed (some would say obsessive) spreadsheet, which started off as a food diary, so I could check my calorie intake, but which now has expanded to include dietary fibre and added sugar. I haven't started differentiating between soluble and insoluble fibre, but it's probably only a matter of time.

My diet began when I faced up to the obvious. My trousers and my shirt were starting to get a little too tight. A tight shirt can be sexy, of course, but not when it’s tight around the middle. I was expecting to lose weight, get fit, etc once I’ve retired, but a step onto the scales showed I’d reached 217lbs and my BMI was 29.5. A BMI of 30 is officially obese, also I’m off skiing next week and my poor thighs take enough of a hammering as it is.

My step onto the scales co-incided with reading some quite challenging pieces about food. The New York Times article: Is Sugar Toxic? by Gary Taubes is well worth reading. It led me on to the book: Fat Chance: The Bitter Truth About Sugar by Robert Lustig.

Lustig is a doctor in the US and specialises in treating children with dietary complaints (fat kids – very fat kids, in fact). For many years he has been studying the effects of modern diets and, in particular, the amount of sugar we consume and, in 2009, he gave a lecture called Sugar: The Bitter Truth which you can watch on YouTube. It’s had more than four million views and it’s really thought-provoking and challenging.

I mean it’s truly challenging because after watching that, or reading his book, you will rethink your views on fat people – maybe they’re not all greedy and lazy – and turn your anger at the food-processing industry. Then you’ll start reading labels, then you’ll realise that Walkers puts sugar in its cheese and onion crisps and you’ll wonder if the world has gone mad.

Lustig is convinced that excessive sugar consumption is the main reason (there are others) for the obesity epidemic, and he presents a scientific argument that is sometimes quite hard to follow – sometimes because of the science and sometimes because he’s American and all his stats and reports relate to US agencies with long, complicated acronyms and abbreviations. There’s a lot of jargon to cut through, but it’s worth the effort.

So I started counting calories, but Lustig convinced me that a calorie is not just a calorie, it matters what sort it is. I added a fibre count and target to my food diary and, this week, I’ve added a count of added sugar. It’s been enlightening and quite scary. I’m trying to get 25g of fibre per day and, if you were eating processed food that would be quite hard to achieve. I’m also trying to eat less than 30g of added sugar per day. If you eat any substantial amount of processed food, or fresh juice, that’s impossible.

When a slice of bread has 2g of sugar, when there’s 11g in a health yoghurt and even cheese and onion crisps are sweetened, you realise the only way is to make every meal yourself. At least then you can choose whether or not to add the sugar. Back in the 1980s, the average sugar consumption per person, per annum (in the US) was 30lbs – now it’s 130lbs. Eating 37g of sugar per day is 30lbs per annum and it’s bloody hard to stay below that level.

Anyway, I’m well on the way to Damascus and I have managed to lose 8lbs. Only another 25lbs to go to get a healthy BMI.