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Estimating the Sugars Content of Simulated Diets that Follow Eating Well with Canada's Food Guide
Author(s) -
StPierre Sylvie,
Gilbert JoAnne,
Elvidge LisaAnne
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.29.1_supplement.124.6
Subject(s) - sugar , food science , added sugar , free sugar , calorie , chemistry , nutrient , food group , sucrose , food composition data , biology , medicine , environmental health , organic chemistry , orange (colour) , endocrinology
Canada's Food Guide (CFG) recommends choosing foods lower in fat, sugar and salt and provides guidance to choose foods lower in added sugars. Added sugar levels in CFG's dietary patterns have never been estimated. Objectives Estimate the proportion of calories coming from added and free sugars in CFG's dietary patterns; and assess these results against the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance on sugars. Methods Sugar‐containing foods were assigned to 3 categories: a) naturally occurring sugars source b) added sugars source or, c) free sugars source. Secondly, we simulated 8000 diets (500 for each age/sex group) consistent with CFG's dietary patterns and estimated their sugars content. Specifically, the grams of total sugars of a food having only naturally‐occurring sugars were all counted as naturally occurring sugars; the grams of total sugars of foods containing a mix of naturally occurring sugars and added or free sugars were all counted as added sugars and/or as free sugars. [This conservative methodology tends to overestimate added/ free sugar content.] Results Mean percentage of energy (E) from total sugars was 21% (17‐24%). Added and free sugars estimates were respectively 3%E (1.7‐5.2%) and 7%E (4.5‐10%). Top contributors of sugars were from naturally occurring sources such as milk products, vegetables and fruits. An assessment of the nutrient distributions of the simulated diets against the Dietary Reference Intakes showed a low prevalence of nutrient inadequacy and an adequate energy level. Conclusion These results showed that the sugar content of CFG dietary patterns is in line with the WHO sugar's recommendations. Adopting CFG's guidance leads to low levels of added/free sugars in the diets while meeting nutrient and energy requirements.