How is that possible?
Here’s what happened: When a food is low in fat, it usually loses its flavour. So you know what they do, the manufacturers, to add taste? Yes, they add a little something they modestly call a “taste enhancer”… In concrete terms, the taste enhancer is sugar! Yes!
So in general a less fatty food = a sweeter food = a food that makes more fat than a fatter food! Radical on dessert creams for example!
In the 60s and 70s, Americans had the idea that by putting less fat in food to proven ways to melt your stomach fat, the population would take less fat! They have launched major communication campaigns.
The result: products are lower in fat than anywhere else, and the taste is compensated with sugar… and the population… has doubled or even tripled in obesity over the past 30 years.
Pointing out fats is the 20th century’s food fiasco!
Another problem is the false “light”, “zero” sugars and other synthetic chemical products with more or less sweetening power.
Assuming you like the taste of aspartame or another synthetic sweetener, you should know that they are complex molecules whose side effects go far beyond producing a simple sweet taste on the tongue. Even worse: some sweeteners actually make you want to eat more… and more sugar…. real this time! A subject in its own right, to which we may return later…
In short, the sugar, avoid it!
How to avoid excess glucose (and other sugars)
Look at the nutrition labels on the foods you buy. Compare what is comparable: always look at the amount of carbohydrates, fats, proteins per 100g or per 100ml in the case of liquid products. Don’t be fooled by comparing values for 30g or 70ml!
Lipids are fats. Again: completely ignore this line for now! It doesn’t matter!
Proteins are generally only good. This is how the body builds and repairs its muscles. For now, consider that the higher it is, the better it is.
Carbohydrates are sugars in the broad sense… and that’s the heart of the matter. But remember: what we want is to avoid too much glucose in the blood at once, so too much carbohydrate digested at once.
Traditionally, carbohydrates have been roughly classified into fast sugars and slow sugars… But it’s so coarse that we can even say it’s bullshit. In reality, there are very fast sugars, super fast, very fast, very fast, fast, slower, quiet, slower, slower, even slower, real slow… and not really super slow!
Your enemy is sugars that are easier to digest. Slower digested carbohydrates, on the other hand, are okay (and even desirable, since you have to find energy/glucose somewhere!).
In any case, it takes at least 30 minutes to assimilate carbohydrates. Then, the speed at which all the sugars in a food pass into the bloodstream is variable. To compare foods according to the rate of absorption of their sugars, we invented the “glycemic index”.
So you could look at long tables of glycerol indexes to find the one that corresponds to each food… and determine which are the fastest / most harmful and which are the slowest / most acceptable.
That being said, to simplify, here’s what you can do first: most of the time you will find the following statement on the packaging of food products: carbohydrates: x grams, of which sugars: y grams”. It is this value – sugars – that you must look at first!
Ideally… you should not eat anything that does not contain more than 5g of sugars for 100g of product! And this is where you will understand your pain! (Even 15g out of 100g is difficult!)
I can reassure you right away: it’s very difficult for everyone! We’re all drug addicts and sugar addicts!
So start by looking at which foods have more sugars than others per 100g and start by eliminating the worst!
For example: do you like Magnum style ice cream sticks? Know that where there is the most sugar, it’s the chocolate around! In general, if you simply switch from milk chocolate to dark chocolate, you reduce the amount of sugars. And if you switch to pot ice cream without chocolate around, you drastically reduce… as long as you don’t compensate by eating more ice cream! (Alternatively, you can also switch to the mini Magnum instead of the Magnum Magnum! :p)
Also remember that for some foods, you will eat 200 grams at once, while for others you may only eat 30 grams at a time. If you are motivated, make your rules of 3!)