In moderation, and the right type, no! I’m marking the change of seasons with some yummy winter berries. This healthy dessert should satisfy your sweet tooth (guilty!), whilst offering plenty of nutritional value too. I’m regularly asked whether ‘fruit will make you fat because of the sugar content'; true, too much of any type of sugar is bad news. However chomping on the right fruit (like these berries) means you’re not only eating fructose (the lowest-GI form of sugar with a glycemic index of 19, versus a glass of apple juice at 30, table sugar at 65, and glucose at 100), but also enjoying other benefits like fibre (helps digestion) & plenty of vitamins and minerals. By chewing solid food and metabolising it slowly (rather than drinking it straight into your bloodstream) you suffer less of a blood sugar spike. I’d rather have a delicious, beautiful, tasty, bowl of fresh berries with nutritional value including some protein (thanks to the yoghurt, plenty of calcium & vitamin-B too) than a dry cardboard biscuit that claims to be ‘low in sugar’.
The purpose of this berry dish is to promote the intake of…relatively low GI, high-fibre, antioxidant-rich foods to optimise immune health, protect hair & skin, and help to ward off diseases. Berries tend to be amongst the richest sources of antioxidants, which give them their deep colours, and are good for memory loss, joint function and eye health, to name a few.
But if you’re looking to lose weight, there’s only one sure-fire, logically-flawless way to do it: burn more calories than you consume. Sounds simple enough, but in todays desk-bound nation, with obesity & diabetes on the rise, and with sugars hidden in all sorts of unexpected places, it’s easier said than done. When you consume sugar, your body has a choice on how to deal with it; ideally you’d want to burn it for energy, the alternative being to convert it to fat and store it in your fat cells. So when indulging, where possible, bust some moves on the dance floor to burn off your surplus calories, & get the bank balance flat again! Or why not walk home from the restaurant next time? Or take the stairs up to your desk? Because healthy doesn’t mean tasteless, and life is for enjoying!
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