Sugar Group
All About Sugar
The Eating Free plan always encourages moderation. However, as a general rule, the Eating Free plan doesn’t always allocate sugar freebies. You and your coach will decide how to proceed with sugar based on your caloric level, exercise level, and preferences.
Added sugars that supply extra calories to your diet need to be monitored. They can come from packaged foods and sweeteners. Some examples of added sugars are syrups, honey, molasses, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, cane juice, and table sugar. You can find the type of added sugar in packaged foods listed in the ingredients, which are posted in descending order from most to least. If the first ingredient is a sugar then the main type of carbohydrate is from sugar. Sugars don’t provide many vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals or antioxidants. They are considered “empty calories,” void of nutritional value. Eating Free recommends that no more than 10% of your total calories come from added sugars.
Fructose and Lactose
Naturally occurring sugars like fructose in fruits and lactose in milk are not counted as a “sugar” in your plan because they are associated with foods that are nutrient-dense and the benefits of eating fruit and milk-products outweigh the negative effects of the sugar they contain.
An example of the difference between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar is plain yogurt vs. flavored yogurt. Plain yogurt contains lactose-based sugars, which equal about 12g of carbohydrates. But if you add fruit flavor to the yogurt the amount of carbohydrates per serving can almost triple to 30g. These extra amounts of carbohydrates are from added sugars and will add extra calories to your daily intake.