What's hiding in your kitchen? - by Derran Langston, Owner and PT @ RWF

I think I've probably lost track of the amount of times a client has told me they eat a certain food, and I've told them it's full of sugar/trans-fats/additives and they've replied with 'really? I didn't know!'.

It's a bit of a sad indictment of society that we simply believe what the packaging WANTS us to believe, and what the adverts WANT us to believe, rather than taking five seconds to double check the claims.

Low fat? Less than 5% fat? Lower fat than the standard brand? All are simple tricks to make you think a food is good for you. 99 times out of 100, low-fat foods are awful. They've taken out the fat (and fat doesn't make you fat, but we'll get on to that some other time) and replaced it with sugar. Why? Because fat tastes good. Remove it, and you've got to replace it with something else. Most of the time, sugar. Check the nutrition labels on low fat foods. You're looking for the 'carbohydrates, of which sugars' bit. Bear in mind a teaspoon of sugar weighs about 5g, and that low-fat yoghurt or bowl of Special K suddenly looks a bit ropey doesn't it? In a 50g serving of Special K, you've got nearly two heaped teaspoons of sugar. Branflakes (the healthy option, right?) are even worse.

The answer is simple. Don't believe what you are told. Read the labels for yourself. Anything ending in '-ose' is a sugar. Smart manufacturers will bank on people not knowing that, and instead of sugar will write 'dextrose', or 'glucose', or 'fructose'. It's all still sugar.

Have a rummage through your cupboards now. That innocent looking Dolmio pasta sauce, the Muller Lites, the SunPat peanut butter. How about your WeightWatchers low fat cereal bars? None of them will have sugar in, surely?

You'll be surprised what is hiding in your kitchen, cleverly disguised as something 'healthy'. Take a stand, take responsibility, and change your buying habits. People are often amazed at the huge changes they can make just by being more aware of what they are eating.