Sugar level in British Products

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I'll try the smaller groceries around me - I find they have tonnes of stuff the big chains don't carry.  Kind of like 7-Eleven in the States (which I would probably miss even more if they hadn't torn down my local one just months before we moved...).

speaking of sugar . . .
I have a question I am hoping someone can help with . . . how do you read the calorie content on the food label?  I have been struggling with the kcal and am not sure how that translates to calories . . . help )

speaking of sugar . . .
I have a question I am hoping someone can help with . . . how do you read the calorie content on the food label?  I have been struggling with the kcal and am not sure how that translates to calories . . . help )

A true "calorie" (as used in scientific circles) is a very small  amount of energy, a KCal(orie) is a thousand times more, (like grams and kilograms) however the "calories" that are used for dietary info are the KCals.

Thank you Mr_Val!  
Now I can resume calorie counting  . . . oh joy!  

Thank you Mr_Val!  

You're welcome!  

Hi NativeOregonian,
I have to agree with you, I find British food to be very sweet.  Even their savory foods have a sweetness to them in my opinion.  The one thing I had the hardest time with was finding aspartame in just about everything.  Especially in childrens items.  Some of their 'juices' had both sugar AND aspartame.  I don't consume aspartame and I certainly won't let my children.  I am a sparkling water addict, drink it by the gallons.  When I moved to England I was excited to find sparking water with flavour essences.  I got home and poured myself a large refreshing glass of sparkling water only to find it was as sweet as syrup (aspartame).  Now I may be wrong, but isn't water loaded up with syrup and carbonation just another soda?  I also found the plain sparkling water to be so high in sodium it tasted like saltwater to me.  I now always check labels for ingredients.

Jana

I've had the same problem! For the past year and a half, I've been craving fruit-flavoured seltzer -- with NO sweetener at all. I don't want sugar or aspartame. I actually find that most foods here are less sugary than their American counterparts, but the constant addition of artificial sweeteners is driving me crazy. It seems nearly impossible to find completely unsweetened products. Has anyone found sugar-free, aspartame-free sparkling water with flavouring? If so, I'd be eternally grateful for any tips!

Have you tried Perrier Lemon?  I've had it and it's nice, but I can't remember whether it had sweetners in it.

Perrier Lemon (and Lime too!) are lovely and have no sweeteners in them. However, I haven't been able to find anything except plain Perrier over here. I'm very limited in terms of supermarkets, so I think I might have to just resign myself to squeezing lemons into my soda water! Thanks, though!

I absolutely LOATHE aspartame.  It leaves a horrid aftertaste in my mouth.  Other than Robinson's High Juice, I haven't found diluting juices w/o it.  So I make my own.  I put slices of lime and cucumber in water and let them sit.  Works for sparkling water as well.  Mmmm.  For my daughter, I put crushed frozen berries at the bottom of a jug of boiled water.  Cool it in fridge, then pop it into her cups.

Iced rosehip/hibiscus tea is lovely too.  I don't think the Rock's organic range of fruit cordials has aspartame, I love the lemon one diluted with sparkling mineral water. Quite sugary though.

Perrier Lemon (and Lime too!) are lovely and have no sweeteners in them.

Ooo, I'd love to find Perrier Lime, but I've only seen the lemon variety.  I'm also quite fond of San Pellegrino, but it's not flavoured. It's not quite as gassy as Perrier.

In American food, corn syrup is added to almost everything. This is done so that U.S. farmers can be subsidized for growing corn.

UK food doesn't have corn syrup, so it is sweetened in other ways, such as coating things with sugar.  You probably notice the difference because it is a different type of sweetener.  American food is so saturated with corn syrup that we don't even taste it anymore.  As an example, I just randomly grabbed an (American) frozen dinner out of the freezer. Chicken chow mein. Yes, corn syrup is one of the ingredients.

Well before people go on about how British food is high in Sugar/Fat, lets make one thing clear America's obesity rate is huge particularly in the South like Texas compared to rates in Britain.

So who's food in more sugary now

You get fat from eating more calories than you burn off from exercise. It doesn't matter if the calories come from sugar or from any other source.

You get fat from eating more calories than you burn off from exercise.

I understood that it related to how many calories you absorb rather than how many you eat.  Some of us have highly inefficient bodies that only absorb a small proportion of calories we eat, and this leaves us thinner even though we eat like horses.

Have you seen that TV program where the dietitian examines someone's - err - droppings?  I overheard an edition recently where she was saying "at least there's whole lumps of food in here, so that hasn't been added to your weight". No absorbtion = no getting fat?