The war on sugar: When the sweet goes sour

People need to re-train their palate so they can eat savoury and not crave sugar says Helen O’Callaghan

IRISH people eat bread as if it were cake, says dietician Orla Walsh, who describes a typical breakfast — two slices of toast with butter and jam. “What’s the difference between bread and cake?” Walsh asks, before answering: butter (fat) and sugar. “Every morning in Ireland, people are turning their bread into cake by adding butter and jam.”

Add to this a 250ml glass of orange juice (five teaspoons of sugar) and the average person has consumed nine teaspoons of sugar before he has left the house (30g of jam, the amount you’d spread on two slices of bread, has four teaspoons of sugar). Only five to six teaspoons a day are recommended for adults with normal BMI.