Hi, after reading a very kind reply from Bill1954 in another thread I have been thinking about trying to reduce the amount of sugar my children eat. I am happy for them to have sweets and cakes and even soft drinks as an occasional treat, but I am struggling with some of the every day products, in particular yoghurt, biscuits, bread and breakfast cereal. If anyone knows of lower sugar versions available in the UK I would be most grateful to hear. I have searched google and my local shops, but many ‘low sugar’ kids products are actually full of agave syrup or honey or something else. Many of those on the internet are only available in the US. Or if you know of a good way of making the adult versions of these products a little more palatable that would be good to know too. I could wean them off it gradually.

I don’t want any artificial sweeteners – apart from not knowing the health risks they pose my aim is to get them used to less sweet food.

Yoghurt: the kids products seem very high in sugar, but at least they are small so the total sugar is sometimes lower than an adult pot. My children won’t eat natural yoghurt. I have tried adding fruit, but haven’t had much success.

Any reasonable low sugar biscuit would be much appreciated. I give them mini gingerbread men now which are aimed at much younger children, but at least they are small so total sugar is low, but it isn’t getting them away from the habit.

They don’t like porridge even with added honey. Any ideas how to make it more fun? Or thoughts on other breakfast cereal that is least bad?

If brown bread has too much sugar and not enough fibre, has anyone come across a reasonable bread that might be palatable to modern children? Wholegrain rye bread was a step too far!

Low sugar ice creams should be easy to find but I can’t – nearly all the emphasis is on low fat. Any ideas?

Any advice much appreciated – it doesn’t have to be perfect merely better than we have now.

Hi FoFi,
Before I say anything, I must point out that I don’t have children of my own so I would never begin to presume the challenges people face in bringing up their children. That said, for a long time I have wondered why there seems to be one rule for adults and another for children. I mean, why are we (the forum users) all happy to accept that cakes, biscuits, etc are all off limits to us as adults but we still want to feed them to our kids? Would we not be doing them a much bigger favour to encourage them to eat the same way we do? After all, they are going to be adults one day and if we don’t change their habits, they are going to end up with the same issues as us. Having been a WW member for years, I never understood ‘the kid’s cupboard’. Why were their parents actively wanting them to eat all the stuff that had landed themselves in such a mess?

Fofi, you mention about children’s yoghurts; all that is is marketing. There is nothing in the yoghurt meant for children and not adults, other than the pretty pictures on the side of the carton. Children will do as well as us to eat full fat yoghurt (from a boring carton).

The diet doctor website does have some suggestions for making children’s diet low carb and I think there are guidelines around amounts (of course their bodies are growing whereas our bodies are only growing out). There are also some very good recipes on there for low carb breads and tasty snacks for lunch boxes, etc. One of the breads is called Oopsi bread.

As I said, I worry that I am on shaky ground here, not being a parent, but surely it makes sense to start the next generation off early in terms of looking at food differently. I know the post above is looking for low sugar versions of biscuits and ice cream and stuff but as Fofi says, they aren’t really out there. I suspect that is because there are not many naturally sweet things that have any real benefits to humans or at least don’t harm us. For our kids’ sake, we need to educate them away from such sweet teeth in the same way we are doing that for ourselves.

Hi, there are too many battles to fight them all at once and so we picked some and it seems we picked some of the wrong ones. Or at the very least we should have reassessed our position as time went on. Only recently when feeding them dough balls I was more worried about the amount of garlic butter they were eating, rather than the number of dough balls!

Most of the kids yoghurt comes in smaller containers, and another (possibly wrong) lesson I have been trying to teach is that you don’t ask for something from the fridge, eat half leave the rest. Maybe getting used to leaving stuff would be better.

I am looking to get them eating the foods we eat, but I need some intermediate steps. Tonight we are making our own strawberry yoghurt (Greek yoghurt and strawberries, and possibly something to sweeten it a little which I can reduce over time).

Hi Fofi,
Yes, I see just where you are coming from. I buy my full fat yoghurt in 200 ml pots (50pence) so they are good for up to four servings and last for about four or five days in the fridge. I find the fat makes it less sour tasting, to me its like eating cream! I have sweetened it before with honey. Not ideal but at least natural. Coconut oil is also quite good as a sweetener but it is a solid in the yoghurt due to the low temp. Also, any fruit you add would give some sweetness. Apple is lovely, as is pear and grapes.

Ps, pineapple and mango are really lovely in yoghurt but I can’t have them on this diet!

HI Fofi,

I do think that you are absolutely right to be looking at reducing the amount of sugar in your childrens’ diet- as a retired dentist I can say that this will be of enormous benefit for the health of their teeth, quite apart from their long term health in general. Does your dental practice have a dental health educator, who would be able to give you suggestions for sugar free alternatives? You are quite right though to be educating their taste away from sweet foods, and not wanting to use artificial sweeteners, however, sometimes you need something to counteract the acidity of things like yoghurt, and for baking. I think from your posts that you are already ahead of the pack in knowing that things like honey, agave syrup and maple syrup are just as bad, and in some cases worse, than ordinary sugar! However, there are two which are good natural substitutes, don’t cause dental decay, and are low calorie- xylitol and stevia. In fact xylitol is actually beneficial for teeth. Personally, I use xylitol, its easier to get hold of, and you can bake with it, though it may take a bit of adjustment. I am told, not being much of a baker myself, that it lowers the temperature of the mix somehow so may need a higher temp or longer bake. Patrick Holford’s Low GI diet cookbook has a good few recipes including biscuits, shortbread, that tick our BSD boxes, and use low carb flours and xylitol. I haven’t calorie counted any of them yet; I will try a couple.
My experience with two children and two grandchildren is that there’s a good chance they won’t get a sweet tooth if you limit the sweet foods and in particular drinks that they have- fruit juice is a major culprit.
Kid’s breakfast foods can be a big problem, most of them are heavily loaded with sugar, porridge is your best bet. I believe shredded wheat is OK, but would need to check that out. All I can say is get reading the labels!
I wouldn’t be concerned about giving them bread, (good whole grain bread of course, not the white rubbish) the sugar in good bread is only to feed and activate the yeast, and is very low. Or make your own, or try the flat breads and waffles on this site and in the book.
Biscuits- not much alternative here other than to bake your own; I found a fab recipe for choc chip cookies on the internet, I’ll try and post it up.
Yoghurt- I’d try natural yog, and add enough pureed fruit and xylitol until they’d eat it- trial and error.
On a separate question, I wonder of we need to limit the carbs for healthy children? If they are not overweight, they should be able to deal with them. It different for us, when our metabolism is cocked up from past mistakes!

Thanks for the info on xylitol Mary, my dentist told me all sweeteners are bad for the teeth so there is some good news at last!

Maybe its not so much limiting the carbs for healthy children, more teaching them to eat the right kinds. So called treats are not treats these days, they are every day occurrences. It would be nice if we could all get back to a situation where a piece of cake or whatever was a rare luxury. And it would do no harm to change the emphasis away from bread, pasta, potatoes and rice to good quality meat and vegetables. The latest stats say that a third of children aged between 2 and 15 are now obese or overweight. We need to turn this around before it gets any worse.

Thank you for the information on Xylitol, I am nervous about feeding them strange sweeteners. My normal policy is (for them not myself sadly) smaller or less frequent portions rather than artificial sweeteners (or low fat). (My definition of artificial sweetener is not necessarily consistent with anything else.)

I agree that ‘treats’ are out of control, one difficulty is that when everyone else is getting so many how do I make sure that I don’t seem to be so much a tyrant that they then go off the rails. (I don’t mind being a tyrant if it works out well.) I do know a couple of people who took the low sugar thing too far (too far = further than me) and it didn’t end well. The children have such easy access to sweet shops, vending machines and friends with similar access if they feel deprived they can overreact at a later date.

I think that teeth are okay at the moment as treats tend to be consumed with meals as are any sweetened drinks.

We just made ‘Strawberry yoghurt’ this evening, but it was more of a drink. 100g Greek yoghurt, 100g strawberries blended hard and I would happily drink that again. In fact I will once I am at an intermittent fasting stage. The kids weren’t impressed so I added 5g sugar. Next time I will add 4g and see how low I can go. I am in no rush to get this right I have several years of errors to correct.

I need to revisit the bread aisle. I haven’t eaten any for over 7 weeks, but once I return to eating it now and again I will need to make sure our bread is okay. The reason I asked about low sugar bread is that in the book Michael states that some brown breads have extra sugar to make the taste more palatable.

And then as we switch away from honey or jam on toast to Marmite we hit the too much salt problem which is probably a problem for a different website!

You are doing a brilliant job Fofi. Its all a learning curve isn’t it? I’m sure you will make many discoveries over the coming weeks that will help you achieve what you want for your family. I think it must be very difficult to try to be healthy when your kids’ friends are maybe getting all sorts of bad stuff. Nor do you want to turn your own kids into ocd health freaks. The very fact that you care is enough. If more parents understood the dangers we’d be doing a lot better against childhood obesity.

The good news is that Xylitol and stevia aren’t artificial- Xlyltol from birch trees (and other sources) and stevia from a plant.
This link explains xylitol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol

Stevia seems to be more difficult to get in the UK, (the liquid one anyway) and the granulated version can often be bulked out with erythritol or even an artificial sweetener. Some people notice a bitter after taste with Stevia, but I’ve not noticed that, perhaps that’s just in drinks. Erythritol should also be fine, though I haven’t investigated that much, since I get on well with xylitol. It can cause some bowel “looseness” if you have a lot of it- perhaps a good thing on this diet!

Personally I don’t believe that salt levels are a problem as long as they are not eating a lot of processed food, which it doesn’t sounds will be the case with your children- so go for the marmite and nut butters!

WRT bread- I think wholemeal and wholegrain breads will be fine, the bread Michael refers to is likely to be the “brown” supermarket bread which is really white bread with colouring!

One post, not sure if it was on this thread or another, mentioned an 11 yr old who although eating healthy food wasn’t very active and wanted more food- from my own experience with one child doing exactly this, and my failure through ignorance to take action at the time so that he is now an overweight 29 yr old, I would really recommend doing what you can to get him moving more. I wish I had done that, and that I had been more proactive in limiting the unhealthy food. Copy of the book is on it’s way to him as we speak!

Found the mention- it was Curlygirl in the “I’m losing it” thread 🙂

Hi All,
We actually eat fairly well already. Butter not Marge. Olive oil for cooking & no pre-packaged salad dressings. I also frequently add pureed veg to thicken soups & casseroles instead of flour. We eat plenty of fruit, salads at least four times a week.
BUT. My husband is Italian and was brought up with the ”food=love” attitude. He expects bread, rice or pasta with every meal & feels neglected if he doesn’t get it. He is VERY active, being a bricklayer, but still has a “beer gut” despite the fact that we don’t drink alcohol at all.

All this means that even when I make a delicious healthy bolognaise with pureed lentils & carrot etc. it ends up being poured over an enormous plate of pasta! The kids have grown up with this (my youngest is 11) & now see it as normal, but they will adapt easier than he does. We have eight mouths to feed & have always bulked the meal out with carbs because they’re cheap. That will be my challenge.

However as I’ve just discovered, once you’re not in the blood sugar spiral you need so much less food overall that I believe it will balance out.

I’m serving up the cauliflower rice and replacing some of the pasta with spiralized zucchini. Smaller serves of potatoes have been easier, I’ve bulked up the other veg instead & nobody even noticed.

I think Bento Box lunches have solved the problem of sandwiches everyday for lunch. They actually prefer having a selection of fruit, veg, cheese, sliced meats (I’m doing an extra roast on Sundays & slicing it up for the week).
I have found one dessert alternative that so far everyone loves (we only have dessert about 3 times a week anyway).
I peel a couple of bananas and freeze them in a zip-lock bag where I also have frozen berries & any apples or pears that had started to look questionable in the fruit bowl. At dessert time I blend the bananas & whatever fruit I decide to use in a high speed blender with Greek style yogurt & just a drizzle of milk. You have to pulse it for a few minutes to get it smooth, but you end up with an almost ice-cream like substance. It has to be eaten straight away or the fruit starts to brown. BUT it’s delicious and there’s no added sugar. A little banana (two bananas between eight people) now & then can’t hurt & it really provides the creamy bulk the kids are looking for.

I haven’t discussed the changes with the kids although they know I am dieting, I’m just replacing things & so far there’ve been no objections (at least from the kids) . Hopefully it will just become a new kind of normal!

Is the blood sugar diet healthy for kids ? Do they need some carbs ?
I would like to hear Michael Mosley”s views on this as it is so much easier if the whole family eats the same food .
I am talking children 3 to 12 years at this stage .
from YaYaM

Doesn’t it say in the book that it’s not advisable for children.

You could always do the meals but supplement it with more carbs for the kids.

Think we are all aware that consuming too many carbs, is adversely affecting children as well as adults, so helping them to reduce their intake can only be to the good, as overweight children too often become overweight adults with potential health problems. Well done on spotting the issue and deciding to tackle the problem with your own children FiFo.

Could I suggest maybe using coconut milk (not coconut water) as a sweetener for natural yogurt, when you have managed to reduce the sugar further? The one I am using comes in at 181cals and 2.3g carbs per 100ml, but they vary so check the can. It contains good fats and has other nutritional benefits,. I have been using this myself to make my chai tea creamy and a little sweeter and find that just 15mls is enough to do this. As a dessert, you could maybe try using coconut milk to make a jelly using pureed fruit for flavour:
•Mix 2tsp of powdered Gelatine with 100ml boiling water until dissolved.
•Top up with coconut milk and fruit puree to make total volume 320ml.
•Pop in fridge until set.
If using leaf gelatine it’s 4/5leafs to make 570mls of jelly, depending how firm you want the set, only with the leaf you need to soak it first in cool water, before squeezing out excess moisture and then adding it to warm liquid – in this case the coconut milk and fruit puree. Please note, I haven’t tried this myself, but think it should work just fine.

Wonder if sometimes for breakfast, you could do French toast for the children, instead of them having cereals? You could add cinnamon or vanilla to the egg mix, as both of these give the illusion of sweetness. Actually thinking about it, you could try vanilla extract in yogurt for the same reason.

Anyway, good luck with making the adjustments to the children’s menu that you are hoping to achieve. I think if you are stealthy about it and make the reductions gradually, they will be less likely to rebel and will become accustomed to a new way of eating.

Giving it a bit more thought and building on SunnyB’s excellent post, might it just be useful to introduce some of the principles of BSD. Even if all you do is introduce more complex carbs, instead of the refined ones and add a bit more leafy veg (assuming you can get the kids to eat it). In my lowly opinion, if you can just educate them to eat a variety of foods and to at least consider better food choices then you’ll set them off on the right steps.

Number 2 son (who is now 18, skinny and over 6′) still puts full fat yogurt and berries in the freezer to make himself a pudding (and occasionally a breakfast) and he’s been doing that for at least the last 10 years. He also makes himself breakfast muffins (a la the Golden Arches) but uses field mushrooms instead of bread.

Obviously as they pass through teenager-hood they’ll still eat precisely what they want and end up with a Gold loyalty card at Greggs.

Hi Fofi, if I might wade in here. If I repeat anything already said, excuse as I have read through most be maybe miss something. First of all you have to let kids be kids, they want what other kids have and don’t like to be different. What you really need to avoid with children is all the crap that we are only just finding out are in our food, like sugar in ketchup and salt and sugar in cereals. Here is where you can make the difference by trying to give them home cooked food and treats. For example, give them pizza but make a dough using chickpea flour, still a bit carbie but not full of sugar and salt like a bought version. Instead of fish fingers I encourage my grandsons to help me make goujons using chickpea batter and fresh fish, chicken drumsticks coated in egg and oats and oven baked. Encourage them to be involved with the food, they are more likely to eat something they have invested time in. You could even make your own ketchup. Cut out the things you know are rubbish and try to replace them. I am not in favour of giving children sugar free, fat free or fake sugar products, they are packed with chemicals (although there is a plus side to Xylitol) or for that matter, adults no we know. One thing to remember, they are children and a treat now and then doesn’t hurt and is good for morale. You don’t want to have skinny miserable children, let them be kids. Also remember, kids are hard work and you dont want to be an overworked, stressed mum. Let me Birdseye lighten the load now and then, just try to give them the best you can most of the time, the 80 to 20 rule.

Good luck.

Popping in… breakfast cereals are really bad! My son knows that shreddies have too much sugar (“so why do they have a green tick, mummy?”). He discovered cheerios when visiting a friend, but the oat lower sugar ones are acceptable to me (as is porridge with a tiny drizzle of honey: my husband introduced that: argh! & weetabix). He quite likes a “mix up” breakfast: a weetabix, handful of lower sugar cheerios and some no added sugar oats/muesli or if I’m feeling kind granola.

My big boys eat egg and sometimes bacon sandwiches for breakfast, medium cooks scrambled eggs with wholemeal toast most mornings and the “baby” will eat porridge (milk and oats) with apple sauce on (homemade with no sugar). since I tried the bsd I have started plating up all the food in the kitchen and piling up veg on their plates – they are not keen on cooked veg but will scoff cucumber, carrots, fennel raw. Trying to reduce the volume of pasta ! They struggle with lentils but I did make the chili and blended the beans before I added them so they couldn’t be seen also thickened up the sauce a treat. Also worth trying is freezing cubes of watermelon and then blending them into a sorbet – can also use yohurt and various berries. Most kids products are expensive and not healthy. We have some oatibix (like wheatabix but made with oats which are better) for emergencies. I am not very consistent in that I never let them have fizzy drinks like coke and lemonade but do let them have fizzy elderflower cordial (probably because we made it together….) even though I know full well it is chock full of sugar. Gradual changes to reduce sweetness helps to readjust their taste buds so they don’t notice a big change. having said that exam boy ate 2 toasted hot cross buns and a glass of milk at 9.45 to keep the revision fires burning. think the 80:20 rule reminder is excellent.