Reading labels - nutritional information vs. ingredients - and sugar

"But there's sugar in my almond butter!"


First off, as nuts and seeds are allowed, so are nut and seed butter - almond butter, cashew butter, sunbutter, etc. Not peanut butter! Remember - peanuts are legumes. Keep the serving to about 1-2 thumb-sized portions because it's easy to go overboard with a spoon in hand. Been there, done that! (Hellooo empty jar!)

If you choose to enjoy a scoop of almond butter from time to time, be sure to check the label. What's in that jar? Does your almond butter contain just almonds, or is there oil and salt added? That is okay.

Your label might look like this













And even though there is sugar, that's okay. Why? Because the ingredients on the jar say "Dry Roasted Almonds". What doesn't the ingredients list include? Sugar! There might be sugar in the nutritional label, but we're interested in the Ingredients list.

If you were to look at the Ingredients list for an apple, it would say 'apple'. If you were to look at the nutritional information, it would look like this -













Sure, there's sugar listed, but that's because it occurs naturally in fruit and other foods. It's okay to eat, but in moderation since a medium apple still contains 19g of sugar. Fruit is nature's candy.


During the challenge, I have you limiting your fruit to < 3 servings a day. Stick to whole fruit, which is a good choice. A not-so-good choice is dried fruit, and fruit juice should be avoided completely. It's just a can of sugar even if it's natural sugar; it's nature's Coke and not a good thing to drink if you're trying to ween your body off sugar.


This isn't just for nut butters as sugar is added to almost everything - tomato sauce, soup (look out for wheat, too), sauces, spices, etc. Read your Ingredients list (there better not be any sugar listed!) and be mindful of the nutrition label.