A Sugar-Restricted Diet

A sugar-restricted diet can be necessary when an individual has been diagnosed as glucose intolerant, pre-diabetic, diabetic or as having another medical condition such as kidney disease, which may affect glucose metabolism.

Function

• Insulin is naturally produced in the pancreas and changes glucose into energy and nutrients

  Glucose is an important energy source for the body. Without glucose, the body can easily become unhealthy, but some individual's digestive systems are unable to successfully complete the glucose metabolism process without medical help. If enough insulin is naturally produced in the body, glucose can be converted to energy. If not, then it is important to stick to a sugar-restricted diet.

Considerations

• Fresh salad without high in fat dressing contain less amounts of natural sugars and carbohydrates

  Most foods contain natural and synthetic sugars or glucose. Carbohydrate-based foods also produce glucose during digestion, so it is difficult to find foods that contain no glucose at all. Foods that contain no carbohydrates include fresh chicken, fresh lamb, fresh fish and fresh pork.

Fact

• Milk contains high levels of natural sugar

  Reading labels on food products can help decipher if a product contains sugar or glucose but sometimes those two words do not appear on food labels. Other words that are used instead of sugar or glucose are fructose, lactose and sucrose, in fact any food ingredient which ends in 'ose' means it contains a form of sugar. Different sugars are formed in different products, for example lactose is natural sugar found in milk and cream-based products.