What are Empty Calories?

These are the calories, or food energy units, that come from refined sugar, fats and starches. They include white sugar, vegetable oil, white flour and all foods made from them.

Confectionery is mainly sugar and soft drinks are sugared water. Cakes, biscuits and puddings are usually high in all three - sugar, vegetable oil and white flour. Crisps and other savoury snacks are very high in fat, and also in salt. These foods provide little more than fuel because they have lost their vital nutrients and fibre.

Having lost all or most of their minerals and vitamins, they do not contribute to health maintenance. Because they are so concentrated, they are not filling, and the temptation to overeat is hard to resist. They make a very major contribution to obesity and health problems of every kind.

Healthy and active people can usually cope with small amounts of junk food on an occasional basis, especially if they exercise vigorously to burn the calories up. If junk food is a large part of the diet, there is a price to pay in present or future ill health, or both.

Danie de Villiers - Freelance Writer

Women and Sugarless Foods

You probably eat more sugar than you need or is good for you. Reducing the intake will make you feel and look better. 

Of all the major components of our diet, sugar has the least to recommend it. It has less nutritional value than most other foods and can contribute to obesity and tooth decay. Therefore, it is worth thinking about the amount of sugar in your diet and how you can go about reducing it. 

If you want to reduce the amount of sugar in your diet, you have two options: to use sugar substitutes and to wean yourself off. For those who cannot face tea of coffee without a sweet taste, you can substitute artificial sweeteners. It can also be used as an effective slimming aid as part of a calorie controlled diet. For cooking, some health food cookbooks suggest fructose, which has similar calorie value to refined sugar, but can be used in smaller quantities because it is sweeter. 

Alternatively, you can reduce your sugar intake by being very careful about the foods you eat. This is particularly important with respect to bottled, packaged, and tinned foods – many of which have a high sugar content not just for sweetness, but because sugar acts as a preservative. For instance, jams and preserves contain a great deal of sugar. A good substance is the sugarless jam, made only from fruit. 

Many breakfast cereals contain refined sugar, either in the cereal itself or as a coating. People who eat breakfast cereals can try to make up their own by mixing dried fruit and nuts with a muesli base.

Tinned fruits, tinned and packaged soups and tinned vegetables like peas and baked beans all use refined sugar as a preservative, so check the labels carefully before you buy them. Instead of tinned food, you can eat frozen fruits and vegetables as these are less likely to have added sugar.

Finally, drinks, fruit squashes, and cordials have high sugar content. You can substitute instead one-calorie drinks, mineral water and freshly squeezed fruit juices or the packaged varieties without added sugar. 

If you use sugar in cooking, then you can try some substitutes. Unsalted, unroasted nuts such as cashews and almonds are naturally sweet; they are a good alternative to sugar heavy condiments for flavoring meat and fish dishes. Alternatively, you can try fresh fruit as garnish. Choose fruit that are in season as these are often sweet and do not need sugar adding to them.    

Do not worry that a reduced refined sugar intake will harm you: sugar is present naturally in many foods, and starches convert into sugars as part of the digestive process.   

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In 1820,a series of mysterious and unsolved deaths occurred in a small,old English town. Everything began when Earl Beaumont attempted to summon a demon during an occasional cult and was found dead with his wife the next day. From then on,more and more people in the town claimed to have encountered a bizarre lady dressed in black. They all said she shared the same appearance as Margorie Walker....