Half of all Californian’s are Pre Diabetic
Half of all Californians are Pre Diabetic, I heard that on the radio the other day. I could only cheer. Why you ask? Well, it goes like this. As a pre-diabetic for twenty-four years before slipping over to the diabetic side and being on this side for the last ten years this is good news for my diet.
Pre Diabetes definition
Bad News Or An Opportunity
Maybe food manufacturers will pay attention and start to develop some more products for both sides of the diabetic line. Now don’t get me wrong they have been dragging their feet, but new products are showing up on the shelves if ever so slowly.
Sugar-Free Products – Amazon.com
Prevalence Of Diabetes
When I first became hypoglycemic it was 20 percent of the population in the diabetic track. We could be considered a niche at that time, not really something that food manufacturers really cared about. So now imagine yourself a food manufacturer today that has sugar added to the products you manufacture and suddenly you get news that half of your customers are not or will not be able to use your products anymore. Wow, really bad news for you, or is it? Hopefully, this kind of news should generate some product innovation.
A sugar-free diet
I do the grocery shopping for my family and love to peruse the aisles for sugar-free or no sugar added products. So I know which aisles are sorely in need of sugar-free modification.
Best Cereal
The first aisle for modification is the big one, the cereal aisle. 99.9% of all those cereals are mostly sugar. There are really only two or three cereals that are low sugar. Cheerios®(the original, 1 gram per cup), Shredded wheat spoon, big biscuit, and wheat’n Bran (the originals only, 0 grams per cup), and corn flakes(2 grams per cup). Don’t be fooled, a bowl full of zero sugar gram cereal is not sugar-free, don’t forget the milk in your bowl has about three teaspoons of sugar per cup. Also that any cereal sugar, even the low sugar ones(like the ones above) are considered high glycemic index(GI) foods. Your blood sugar levels will spike.
Sugar-Free Cake Mix
Pillsbury Moist Supreme Classic Yellow Sugar-Free Premium Cake Mix, 16 oz – Amazon.com
Cake mixes and frostings are the next aisles in need of change. Some change has happened in the last few years. But clearly not enough. A big player in this category is Pillsbury® and they have developed a few no sugar added cake and brownie mixes, also no sugar added frosting recipes. The other manufacturers are still dragging their feet.
Pillsbury Moist Supreme Devil’s Food Sugar-Free Cake Mix, 16 oz – Amazon.com
Sugar-Free Condiments
The last aisle for this article will be the condiment aisle. Ketchup and barbecue sauces are packed with sugar and I challenge anyone to find a no sugar or low sugar barbecue sauce currently on the shelves. I have noticed that there is currently one ketchup, Heinz® Reduced Sugar Tomato Ketchup, with one gram of sugar per 16 gram serving. That’s a 75 percent reduction in sugar. Thank you. Heinz®.
How to convert grams of sugars into teaspoons
What that means is that one tablespoon of regular ketchup is equal to one teaspoon of sugar.
A word on barbecue sauce
I’m not going to single out any major brand of barbecue sauce, this is just one nutritional label from a barbecue sauce but please note that there are 12 grams of sugar in one serving of two tablespoons in this barbecue sauce. In other words, half of the serving is sugar using the above formula. There are other barbecue sauces with more sugar and some with less but all are within the same range.
Let’s hope that the manufacturers have heard the message and we see a new bloom of sugar-free, reduced sugar, or no sugar added products soon, after all, half of all Californians are pre diabetic.
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