Sugar?

[Penny4]

Good math NYBiker...the yogurt in question has 120 calories.

I guess it is hard for me to break away from low fat foods, because that is a big part of WW, and I have been successful iwth WW in the past. I do try to eat healthy fats....avocado, olive oil, etc. I guess i am just confused about trade offs between fats, sugars, etc. I don't really have a sweet tooth, and I try to keep an eye on sugars in other foods such as yogurt, bread etc. I also try to keep carbs from things like pasta, bread and rice limited. Eliminating all sugar is not really my goal, but just to understand the role of it in a seemingly "WW approved" food (meaning low carb/low fat/high fiber/high protein).

I am a terrible cook, and I dislike cooking immensely, so it is really a struggle for me to keep a balanced diet with more natural, unprocessed types of foods. I try...I really do....but ugh...it's a struggle.

Thanks for everyone's input.

[GLC1968]

Is WW really low carb, low fat, high fiber and high protein? I tried living that way once and I was starving all the time!

For sugar, if you aren't avoiding it completely, it's mostly a trade-off like ny biker suggested. If you cut down on sugar, you are naturally cutting down on carbs and calories that can then be used for something else. Sugar is 100% completely devoid of nutrients (unless you are eating raw honey or grade B maple syrup), so why waste calories on it if you are trying to limit your intake? You get so much more bang for your buck if you were to eat a bowl of berries and top it with a little plain yogurt than to eat pre-sweetened strawberry yogurt.

Another pleasant side effect to eliminating all sugar for a period of time is that everything else starts to taste sweeter. After 30 days with zero sugar, I was stunned at how sweet my vanilla Chobani yogurt tasted. It almost made me cringe! It was a huge change because I used to just barely tolerate it because it was the lowest sugar flavor that I could handle (I am not a fan of plain yogurt either)!

[Irulan]

Are we talking sugar as in...sugar.. or, sweeteners of which there are many. Regardless of what kind of sugar is used ( honey, sugar, molasses, agave syrup, fructose, sucrose, cane sugar, beet sugar, corn syrup, HFCS etc) it all comes out as "sugar" on a label. Sugars are also considered a carbohydrate and should be figured as such into your daily eating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar

[Penny4]

Is WW really low carb, low fat, high fiber and high protein? I tried living that way once and I was starving all the time!

I probably should say that WW uses fat, carbs, fiber and protein content to assign "points" values to their foods. Foods that are lower in fat and carbs and higher in fiber and protein tend to be lower points, therefore pushing you to eat more fruits, veggies, lean proteins, whole grains etc. It's not no/low carb in an Atkins kind of way. They also push healthy fats like olive oil, avocado, etc.

[Irulan]

I use what I'd call a common sense label reading approach. For example, three similar brands of yoghurt, all sweetened with sugar or cane sugar or honey ( I will not eat HFCS) I will pick the one with the least amount of sweetening.

[Penny4]

I use what I'd call a common sense label reading approach. For example, three similar brands of yoghurt, all sweetened with sugar or cane sugar or honey ( I will not eat HFCS) I will pick the one with the least amount of sweetening.

I do try to do this...I guess I am just trying to figure out how much total sugar (the amt listed on the nutrional label) is too much in a day. Nutrional labels with seemingly good stats in the other categories confuse me when the sugar is high. I saw a yogurt drink the other day with 35g of sugar in it. What in the world???

[ny biker]

I wonder if some of the sugar in yogurt is naturally occurring in the milk? How much sugar is in the plain yogurt?

[Owlie]

There can't be that much, because that's lactobacillus food. Fage total 2% yogurt (plain): 9g sugars, 23g protein, 4.5g fat, 15mg cholesterol per 1 cup serving.

*Fage because that's what was in my fridge.

For the record, I don't like plain yogurt either, except as a sour cream substitute or as a base for certain curry sauces. I'll add a generous swirl of honey (what constitutes "generous" depends how close to the expiration date the yogurt is), granola and/or fruit. Strawberries or pomegranate seeds are the best! (A cubed peach with a sprinkling of cinnamon is nice too.)