Ex-sugar addict welcomes new food stamp
A former sugar addict from Killingworth wants better education on the health risks.
A former sugar addict from Killingworth wants better education on the health risks.
Jonathan Ord was told he’s heading for an early grave when he stepped on the scaled last March, weighing almost 30 stones.
Since then he’s changed his lifestyle, cutting out refined sugar and with that a whopping 11 stones.
It’s as a new certification’s rolling out on food labels to identify low free sugar content.
Sugarwise will be the only mark certifying foods that derive no more than 5% of their energy from free sugars – ‘simple’ sugars that are broken down quickly by the body, are accompanied by little fibre and other nutrients.
44 year old Jonathan said:
“I’d have probably been lucky to see 55. It has saved my life. Its quite frightening that I got to forty odd years old without really understanding what food I was eating.”
I would think nothing of spreading tomato ketchup on food or having a can of diet coke or something like that. Actually making the link between the weight I’d got to and the food I was consuming… It was an eye-opener. Since then it’s been a journey, it’s been a transformation and one that hasn’t finished yet.”
Rend Platings, Sugarwise Founder, said:
“I was shocked to hear that my daughter’s generation may be outlived by their parents. It’s not that we don’t know about the dangers of sugar, we do; the problem relates to our lack of access to healthier choices. I am hoping that Sugarwise will have the potential to change things in the same way Fairtrade and Organic labels have – both have successfully driven up demand and availability of products in their categories. We would all benefit if the same was the case for low free sugar products.”