I worried my children eat too much sugar – then found five easy ways to cut down

“Sugar in childhood linked with dementia in older age” screamed the headline. My children were eating ice cream at the time. It felt like a warning. The headline was referring to a study comparing young children from conception until the age of two, born during rationing in England and those born just after it had stopped. When sugar rationing ended in England in September 1953, the average person’s sugar intake rose from an average 41g a day up to 80g, almost overnight. Now researchers have found that those who were babies and toddlers during rationing had a 23 per cent lower chance of developing dementia. While the message about sugar is valid, the study itself is inherently flawed, says Dr Federica Amati, author and chief nutritionist for Zoe. “Nobody had their sugar intake measured. The comparison isn’t about diet; it’s about date of birth relative to a government policy. And this particular birth cohort is only in its early seventies now so the dementia cases captured so far are unusually young ones,” she explains. “Dementia isn’t one disease with one cause and changes in the brain start twenty to thirty years before anyone notices symptoms.” However, it’s just one of a raft of studies pointing to a link between high sugar diets in childhood and health problems – from dental problems to obesity. Amati agrees that reducing sugar is important for children’s health. “It rests on teeth, on the taste preferences that get laid down in the first few years and on metabolic health. Those show up now, not in 2090.” So what are the biggest mistakes parents make, and how can I discreetly lower sugar in my own kids’ diets? Shorts Amati says that for parents of younger children, the single most positive thing they can do is to drop sugar-laden ‘follow-on’ and ‘growing-up’ milks.” “The National Health Service, Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition and the World Health Organisation all agree they’re unnecessary,” she says. For the third of 18-month-olds who drink them, they supply half of their free sugar intake. “Water and milk are the only drinks for infants,” she says. Rather than “rationing” our children, she recommends replacing it with healthier food. “A diet with enough good in it squeezes the rest out without anyone having to play sugar police. What children need is patient, unpressured exposure to the harder flavours like broccoli, lentils, olive oil, plain yoghurt. It can take ten offers before a food is accepted. Most of us stop at three,” she explains. She advises I focus on frequency, rather than quantity of sugar. “Every sugar exposure drops the pH in the mouth for twenty to forty minutes, so it’s the grazing that does the damage, not the pudding. The same biscuit eaten at the end of lunch and eaten alone at four o’clock are not the same event for a child’s teeth,” she says. I set out to make sensible swaps that won’t cost money and will teach good habits that will, hopefully, set them up for the future. Swapping ice cream for frozen milkshake It’s been a hot summer and frozen snacks have played a larger part in our diet than usual. We’ve swapped shop-bought ice cream for making our own lollies by freezing milkshakes. I blend milk, bananas and frozen strawberries or blueberries (which are significantly cheaper than fresh and keep the drink cool enough to be refreshing). Each time, I make enough milkshake to fill up half a dozen lolly moulds. My children have got involved with the blending, which always makes them more inclined to eat their food. Dr Amati says this is an upgrade from most shop-bought ice cream that carries “emulsifiers, stabilisers, flavourings and a much higher free sugar load. Yours has three ingredients you can name.” She cautions about portions. “Blending breaks down the structure of the fruit, so the sugars are released from the food matrix and behave more like free sugars. Intact fruit slows its own absorption; blended fruit doesn’t.” I hadn’t realised that the milk is a huge positive in a frozen milkshake lolly. “Calcium and casein buffer acid in the mouth, which protects teeth. The fat and protein slow the sugar release. A blended fruit-and-milk drink behaves quite differently from blended fruit on its own,” she says. She suggests that 150ml “treated as a nutritious pudding, rather than a drink, is a genuine upgrade on the freezer aisle.” Taste verdict: This gets an average 9/10 from the children. Cost saving: Frozen strawberries at £3 per packet (Tesco), milk £1.20, and three bananas at 49p makes 14 lollies for £4.69, compared with Twister mini lollies at £4.90 for 14. A saving of 21p per lolly. Swapping biscuits for healthy cake We usually save cake for rare occasions, but I figure that if I make it healthily then it can swap with some of the biscuits which we keep in the cupboards. I substitute banana and dates for refined sugar and add in ground almonds for protein. I feel smug about having created a cake with no added sugar but Amati reminds me: “You haven’t taken the sugar out. Dates are roughly 65 per cent sugar and blended into a batter those sugars count as free sugars, same as the caster sugar you replaced.” But she does say that this is a more healthy way of eating cake. “There is fibre from the dates and banana, fat and protein from the almonds. That combination slows digestion, creates a gentler blood glucose response and keeps everyone full for longer. You’ve also added potassium, magnesium and vitamin E, which caster sugar contributes nothing of. So it’s a nourishing cake rather than a healthy food, and that’s exactly the right thing for it to be. Cake is allowed to be cake.” Dr Amati recommends adding savoury snacks into our diet too. “The best children’s snacks are fruit, cheese, oatcakes, yoghurt, veg and hummus, because they’re cheap, they involve chewing, and they don’t need a label read.” Gut health company Zoe makes its own snack bar, too, though Dr Amati says for children she reserves these for out-of-the-house situations. Taste verdict: Mixed: a 9/10 from my eldest and me but my youngest did not like it. Cost saving: Bananas 49p, Dates £1.40, Ground almonds £3.40, eggs 80p. At a total of £5.89, this was more expensive than a tub of millionaire’s from Sainsbury’s at £3, but it felt worth it with a very simple ingredients list. ‘I substitute banana and dates for refined sugar and add in ground almonds for protein,’ writes Genevieve Swapping shop-bought bread for homemade My husband Mark used to make bread frequently and somehow as life gets busier our bread machine gets forgotten. Yet it’s delicious and waking to the smell of fresh bread is genuinely quality-of-life improving. I’m always shocked by how much sugar is in supermarket bread and I’m keen to start enjoying the real deal. I, however, haven’t really experimented with the bread machine before. I use Mark’s recipe and somehow create a brick. This one’s going to take me a bit of practice but it will be worth it. Taste verdict: Inedible, but I know from past experience this becomes 8/10 with practice. Cost: A huge saving. Homemade bread costs 70p per loaf compared to £2 for supermarket bought, a saving of £475 per year. Swapping shop bought pasta sauce for homemade I’m a big fan of a tomato and mascarpone pasta sauce. We have an M&S garage around the corner: it doesn’t sell actual mascarpone but sells the ready made sauce and, when time is pushed, I’ll grab it. But I know that when I take the time to make my own it’s delicious – and very simple. And it has no added sugar. The same, of course, applies for most sauces, including the mild curries that our children have started enjoying, so my husband Mark, who cooks a lot, has started making korma sauce too. Taste verdict: 9/10 – of course the homemade versions are better. Cost: £2.35 – a saving of 20p. Tomatoes 85p, half a tub of mascarpone £1.20 and basil 30p compared with shop bought pasta sauce, £2.55. Swapping cereal for eggs During term time our children frequently eat eggs for breakfast but our leisurely mornings this summer have thrown our egg habit. Instead, the children have been eating high protein, very low sugar Surreal cereal. It’s not cheap (£4 for eight servings) and I’m excited to return to eggs: scrambled, omelette, dip dips or splat eggs, as my children call fried eggs. Dr Amati recommends checking all cereal labels carefully. “Swap high-sugar cereals for plain porridge or wheat biscuits, with berries or sliced banana for sweetness,” she says. “Check the label on anything marketed to children — several “healthy” children’s cereals run above 20g of sugar per 100g.” Taste verdict: 10/10 Cost: It’s 80p for two eggs, compared with 50p for a 30g serving of Surreal cereal so it is more expensive Conclusion We haven’t given up all sugar in our diets – there’s no way my children would let me – but we have cut down on UPFs in the process of reducing free sugars, which feels much healthier all round. I’m keeping Dr Amati’s advice in mind: “I avoid added sugar sauces and soft drinks at home and focus on fresh whole fruit. We do have ice creams and sweets at home but they’re eaten as part of a meal instead of in isolation.” Now, I just need to keep it up.