Day 12

Label maths

When you watch an actor fall through a window in a movie, chances are that the window was made of sugar.

I am absolutely wrecked today. Sugar has been the clear winner on day 12. Flat, tired, grumpy, delirious, vague, edgy and a bit flatulent if you must know.

I really need a day off but have to wait another 48 days. Oh, that even hurts to type.

I learnt a lot about labelling today. Real cheeky those food companies. Lets take some frozen yoghurt as an example. Now when reading the label (on the fact sheet in a store I was in today) it says that there are 6 grams of sugar per serving. Fantastic you say, only 1 teaspoon, I have found my new tasty snack. However, you need to look above the ingredient list and always check the servings per packet or suggested serving size. In the case of the yoghurt, the suggested serving size was just 25 grams. I measured out this 25 grams and it was just over a table spoon. Or perhaps a solid mouthful. Now when I asked the shop assistant to make me a serving that most people order, it came in at 210 grams. Over 8 times the suggested serving size. This 6 grams of sugar (in the 25 gram serving size marked on the label) must be multiplied by 8 bringing the total sugar to 48 grams in the cup. You then divide that by 4 to get the teaspoon amount and suddenly you’re looking at 12 teaspoons in that ‘healthy’ yoghurt treat.

The same applies to juice (see picture below) . You see sugar per serving as 21.9 grams but the suggested serving size is just 200 ml. Who has only 200ml as a serve? A standard glass in our kitchen is around 400ml or more. So 400ml means 2 servings so suddenly there are 43.8 grams of sugar in my glass. Divide that by 4 and we are staring at over 10 teaspoons.

I hope that helps. You have to embrace your inner mad scientist at first but we will be looking at this in the film and raising the question of clearer, more user friendly labelling.

That burst of maths was the last bit of energy I have in me for the day so here is what I ate.

3 pieces of toast with raspberry jam (9 grams per spread so 2 teaspoons on each bit of toast, 6 teaspoons in total)

500ml of Big M banana. Ouch. 52 grams or 13 teaspoons

1 strawberry yoghurt Uncle toby’s Muesli bar 2 teaspoons

1 decaf latte with 1 sugar

A small box of coconut water 14 grams or just over 3 teaspoons

2 slices of Fruit toast/Raisin toast 8 teaspoons

1 apple/blackcurrant Top Pop juice (7 teaspoons and rocket fuel for kids)

1 bowl of home made pesto spaghetti

Apologies for being brief tonight but today has been the most difficult so far. It wasn’t only the sugar, we have a lot of travelling for interviews to do in the next month and the preparation involved is quite intense. It will be worth it though, we have managed to get access to some wonderful people. The list of questions for them grows everyday and I look forward to sharing the findings with everyone.

A big thanks for the support so far too. It is incredibly humbling to hear people’s stories and know that there are other people who feel as strongly about getting this message out there and making millions of people’s lives healthier and happier.

12 days done and another 40 teaspoons.

Now excuse me while I go and give my pregnant lady a damn good spooning.
This is a photo of the pile of sugar that the sky dumped on our house today.