The 5 Best Grocery Shop Sugar Swaps

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Cut 96 Grams Of Daily Sugar From Your Diet

On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, coach Jeremy Reid takes you to the grocery store to uncover the 5 best grocery shop sugar swaps to cut 96 grams of daily sugar from your diet.

That’s right, today we’re going shopping to uncover common “health food” items that are secretly packed with added sugars.

I call this the grocery shop sugar swap.

Table Of Contents – Jump To:

This is where I’m going to pick out some very popular items from different areas of the grocery store, then put them side by side with comparable, but healthier options.

At the end of this post, you are going to be shocked by the amount of added sugar we saved, just from picking out a healthier version.

Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors

Most of you may be like, “yeah, yeah, I know sugar is bad, whatever”.

However, there’s a lot of hidden sugars in the foods we eat.

A diet high in sugar can have a plethora of negative health effects that doctors call, metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Metabolic Syndrome Can Cause:

• A negative effect on your good HDL cholesterol and negative raising effect on your bad LDL cholesterol.
• Issues with triglyceride levels
• High blood sugar
• Excess weight gain
• High blood pressure

Ultimately, when your diet’s too high in sugar, the excessive amount of added sugar causes all sorts of health issues, not to mention unwanted fat gain.

The Best Grocery Shop Sugar Swaps

It’s time to take back control of your food intake to ensure you know how much sugar you’re consuming.

Since many of these food items have a lot of hidden sugar, it’s important for you to learn how to first recognize it.

To help with this, we’re going to pick out some popular food items at the grocery store that you may or may not use on a daily basis.

Then we’re going to compare the amount of added sugar and see what we can save.

Let’s go grocery shopping.

1. Oatmeal

Since breakfast is the first meal of the day, and, in many people’s opinion, the most important meal of the day, let’s start here.

If you are all about convenience, a very popular breakfast item is instant oatmeal.

Most of the instant oatmeal on the shelf is flavored, which to some people, makes it taste great.

However, even though you may find it delicious, it is not nearly as healthy as its older and more mature brother, old fashioned oats or steel cut oats.

These types of oatmeal are going to be far more healthier.

Here’s why.

When you start looking closer at the nutrition facts label, you’ll see:

• Instant Quaker Oats contains 12 grams of added sugar
• Old Fashioned Oats contains less than 1 gram of sugar

To sweeten up the old fashioned oatmeal, you can add some stevia or fruit to create a high fiber, slow digesting, complex carbohydrate to add to your breakfast.

Bottom Line: Instant oatmeal contains 12 grams of added sugar, while old fashioned oats contains essentially zero sugar.

2. Granola Cereal

Another popular breakfast item is granola cereal.

Everyone likes cereal, right?

If you were like me, as a kid you probably grew up eating cereal almost every morning of your life.

When we think of cereal, most people think eating granola is a healthier cereal option.

However, when you start comparing and reading the nutrition facts labels, not all granola is the same.

When comparing multiple packages of granola, even though the actual granola looks very similar, the nutrition facts label tells a different story.

For example:

• Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Cranberry Almond Granola has 16 grams of added sugar in it.
• Bare Naked Granola has 4 grams of sugar.

So right there, you would be saving 12 grams of sugar, just by choosing a different type of granola.

If you want your granola to be a little sweeter, add 1-2 stevia packets in there and it’s going to taste delicious.

Bottom Line: if your granola includes 16 grams of added sugar, swap it for a cleaner version containing only 4 grams of sugar.

3. Canned Soup

On a cold windy afternoon everyone feels a little comforted by a bowl of soup.

Even though a better option is to make your own soup, so you know what’s inside of it, canned soup is a really popular product in the grocery store.

It’s popularity is proven by the fact it takes up almost an entire aisle at the grocery store.

To compare the added sugar content of soup, I wanted to pick two popular soups that are from a comparable product line.

Based on this, I choose soups from the Vegetable Classics line.

One is a tomato basil soup and the other is a minestrone soup.

When comparing the nutrition facts labels, the tomato basil soup has 15 grams of sugar and only 3 grams of sugar in the minestrone soup.

You can see by just making one small swap with your soup choice, you’re going to save an additional 12 grams of sugar in your diet.

Bottom Line: if your tomato soup contains 16 grams of sugar, swap it out for a minestrone soup that contains only 3 grams of sugar.

4. Salad Dressing

Salads have always been known as a really healthy food.

The fact is greens, including lettuce, spinach, and mixed greens are fantastic for our health because they are loaded with natural sources of vitamins and minerals.

Even though salads should be a part of your diet, the salad dressings we put on them can make all the difference in the world.

In some cases, you’re getting more calories from the dressings you put on the salad, compared to the actual salad itself.

To compare the sugar content of salad dressings, I picked two popular salad dressings.

The first is Kraft Catalina salad dressing which is a little sweet and kind of a tangy.

The other one is Wish-Bone Romano Basil Vinaigrette, which is an oil based vinaigrette.

If you look at the vinaigrette, you can actually see a large amount of oil on the top.

When comparing the nutrition facts labels, a 2 tablespoon serving of:

• Catalina salad dressing has 8 grams of sugar
• Vinaigrette salad dressing has 1 gram of sugar

Now you’d think you’re going to make up the calories from the extra fat in vinaigrette, however it actually has less fat, less sugar, and less calories than the Catalina.

Bottom Line: swap out creamy salad dressings for vinaigrettes.

5. Tea

If you go down the beverage aisle in your grocery store, you’re going to see very popular iced teas, juices, and all sorts of sugary sweetened drinks.

A popular brand of ready to drink teas comes from Pure Leaf.

Unfortunately, one 18.5 fl oz bottle of Pure Leaf Sweet Tea contains 42 grams of sugar.

42 grams!

If you compare that to cold brew tea bags, all you have to do is pop this in a tea cup to make your own homemade cold brew glass of tea.

To make it sweeter, simply add 1-2 stevia packets, and maybe a squeeze of lemon.

You’ve just made a very sweet and delicious iced tea that’s has zero added sugar, compared to the whopping 42 grams of sugar found in the Pure Leaf Sweet Tea.

Bottom Line: to avoid the more than 40 grams of sugar found in sweetened tea,
brew your own tea, then add 1-2 stevia packets. 


Bottom Line On Grocery Store Sugar Swaps

On your next grocery trip, don’t forget to read the nutrition facts labels and compare items to see if there is a healthier lower sugar option.

Almost every single section of the grocery store is going to be loaded with food options that may look the same and “healthy”.

However, once you start reading the nutrition facts labels, you’ll notice there’s a big, big difference between many of these foods.

By making these 5 grocery store sugar swaps, you just saved yourself from consuming an extra 96 grams of added sugar a day.

I repeat, 96 grams of sugar was saved by making slightly healthier food decisions.

It’s time to start looking at the nutrition facts label to get a better idea of what you’re consuming.

The next time you’re in your grocery store:

1. Read the nutrition facts labels.
2. Compare similar products on the shelf to see if there’s a healthier, lower sugar option.

Once you start researching what you’re putting in your body, you will probably find there’s a tremendous amount of added sugar you’re taking in.

Thank you so much for reading.

We’ll see you again next time.

Keep Living Lean.

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