10 Swaps That Slash Your Sugar Intake
It's possible to cut back without feeling like you're being punished.
By Emma Haak
At Breakfast
Aside from skipping the pastries and baked goods (admit it–muffins are just cupcakes without the frosting), reducing your a.m. sugar intake is all about beverages.
Toss: Your regular vanilla latte. A grande size from Starbucks has 35 grams of sugar.
Have This Instead: A cappuccino. A grande cappuccino at Starbucks has 10 grams of sugar.
Sugar Saved: 25 grams, roughly the amount in a kid-size fast food milkshake. If you're more of an at-home or office-coffee-machine type, but you always add a packet or two of sugar, try replacing the sugar with a pinch of cinnamon, or swap both milk and sugar for coconut milk, which is naturally sweet, says McKel Hill, RDN, the author of Nutrition Stripped.
Toss: A glass of OJ, which has about 21 grams of sugar.
Have This Instead: You could eat the actual fruit (we know...you've heard that advice 1,000 times), or you could follow this suggestion from Stefanie Sacks, a certified dietician, culinary nutritionist and the author of What the Fork Are You Eating?: water down your juice with sparkling water or seltzer. Start with 1/2 juice, 1/2 water and work your way down to 1/4 juice, 3/4 water.
Sugar Saved: Around 15 grams, once you reach that 1/4-juice mark. That's about the amount in half of a chocolate candy bar.
Toss: The sweetened-nut milks you add to your morning smoothie. Sweetened vanilla almond milk has 15 grams of sugar per 8-ounce serving.
Have This Instead: Go for unsweetened milks (they can still be flavored). As long as it's unsweetened, it'll have no sugar.
Sugar Saved: If you're downing a smoothie with 4 ounces of sweetened almond milk on the way out the door every morning, you're drinking 225 grams of sugar per month, about the amount in 5 1/2 cans of cola.
Published 09/02/2016