Category: New Woman

Sugar is now at the centre of the battleground between food and health. How easy would it be to cut it out of your diet? By Louise Carpenter

AS a mother of four I am not sure how I am supposed to feel about sugar. If I believe the anti-sugar lobby, it’s “the new tobacco”. Sugar rather than fat, the argument goes, is responsible for ever-rising levels of obesity. “Sugar is not addictive like tobacco,” explains Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of the campaign group Action on Sugar, “but it causes just as much harm in other ways. It is an unnecessary source of calories and a major cause of obesity, thereby causing many deaths and diabetes.”

The more sugar you eat or drink, the more the body stores it as fat. Hence the links to obesity. But what is emerging is just how much of what we eat is stuffed with “hidden” sugar, not just in fizzy drinks and doughnuts, but sauces, cereals, fruit juices, even fruit itself. This month Britain’s chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies said “we may need to introduce a sugar tax” to help reduce the amount manufacturers put in their products.

This can be confusing for the average person who is just trying to feed their kids. And that’s before addressing the counter-argument that sugar is taking too much of the blame and that overall nutrition, as well as exercise, are important too.

To try to make sense of it all, I go cold turkey for 30 days, dragging my family along for the ride. If I cut out sugar, would I feel better? Being the kind of person who steams my children’s vegetables while allowing them a sticky bun at the weekend, I am a pretty good guinea pig. How much hidden sugar is really in my children’s diet? And how much of life without sugar can I tolerate?

WEEK ONE

The mood of this first week free from sugar is, to quote Thomas the Tank’s Fat Controller, “confusion and delay”.

I’ve done a lot of reading: Michael Moss’s bestseller Salt Sugar Fat; the blog Kate Quit Sugar; the NHS Choices website; endless press coverage; James Duigan’s Clean & Lean Diet. I’ve watched Dr Robert Lustig’s convincing lecture, Sugar: the Bitter Truth, on YouTube.

Here’s what goes in the bin: Cheerios, Fruit and Fibre, Petits Filous yoghurts (my son has been known to eat three on the trot), baked beans, tomato sauce, tomato and mascarpone pasta sauce and the children’s Saturday evening “treat”: pizzas. Also on the way out are jam, honey and anything, frankly, that kids find tastes nice.

Where I am confused is on the issue of fruit and moderation. Fruit is laden with sugar (fructose). If, as Lustig says, fructose is “poisonous”, what is moderation? Smoothies and fruit juices, if you believe some research, are as bad as Coke (35g of sugars nearly 9 teaspoons per can). Get rid of fruit in my children’s lunchboxes? They have two pieces every day and often fruit for pudding. But a banana can have 7 tsp, grapes 1½, and a melon 12 tsp all their favourites.

The NHS is less hardline, more sane, advising a “balanced diet” and so too is Kate Quit Sugar: “I eat fruit because it is delicious. The whole fruit includes the fibre of the flesh and also the naturally occurring fruit sugar. People have a million opinions on fruit … make up your own mind!”

But when it comes to mass-market fruit juices, even some of those sold as having relatively lower sugar content, everybody is pretty much united. They are bad. Spawns of the devil.

I decide that the fruit stays for the kids but not bananas, and no fruit for me. I supplement bananas with kiwis and lower fructose fruit such as berries, and switch to raw vegetables such as peppers and sugar snaps, which the children welcome (thank God). Brown pasta and granary bread also stay. The children are small, and I’m not prepared to experiment with them in the way I can with myself.

There’s some grumbling about the cereals (20.9g of sugars 5 tsp per 100g ); “why do they tell us on the box they are healthy?” asks my eight-year-old. A quick life lesson there. But when I hide the chocolate biscuits (two each after school, normally: 1 tsp of sugar each) there is a riot. “You’re lying! You’re lying!” It’s a routine for them. I relent.

As for me, the diet is a drastic change, not from cutting out sweet stuff (I’m not big on biscuits and chocolate) but from eating no carbohydrates at all (all sugar in the end). By day two, I have no energy. I have to go to bed straight after the children at 8.30. The running I started a few months ago which brought me such mental relaxation and quick weight loss is off the cards. I feel cross and resentful.

I seem to live on boiled eggs, almonds, coconut flakes, protein in various forms, avocado and kale. I go to the health food shop in my country town and spend more than £40 on chia seeds, quinoa, flaxseed, more coconut flakes, hazelnuts, coconut water (hideously expensive) and more kale. I’m like a crazed celebrity. By Sherborne standards, I’ve spent so much in one hit the shopkeeper throws in protein shake samples for free, for my planned smoothies. In Sainsbury’s I buy expensive, unsweetened almond milk and a small jar of coconut oil that costs £6. Six pounds! That’s the price of a chicken for the kids.

Breakfast is my main problem. The low glycemic index granola from the health shop, bought at vast expense, disappears in one sitting. It’s all very well for Hollywood stars to whip up smoothies of avocado, kale, blueberries and chia seeds, but you try doing that without a housekeeper or a nanny when you’ve got four kids, a job and lunchboxes to pack.

So I’ll leave you with an image at the end of this first week: determined to make said smoothie but not owning a smoothie maker, following a recipe, I throw into the food processor the frozen berries (low sugar), kale, chia seeds, coconut water. It all explodes over the top and onto the floor. The dog laps it up and is sick. The little one is banging his spoon on the table singing at the top of his voice “No no no sugar, never never never!” I am in so much pain with my back which I later find out is severe constipation that I can hardly move. I cry out in such anguish that my husband looks worried rather than bemused.

But by day seven, everybody is eating full fat Greek yoghurt sweetened with berries and topped with protein-packed nuts. Perhaps this is a new definition of good mothering? Never mind if the mother can’t move.

WEEK TWO

The backache has eased. I make a string of rather joyless suppers with quinoa and various leaves (no balsamic in the dressing) and spiced-up protein or smoked salmon. The husband confesses that one day he is so starving he eats two hot lunches at work.

The NHS recommends that we try to limit ourselves to 10tsp (40g) of added sugars a day, but some have said this should be 6 tsp for women and 8tsp for men. The World Health Organisation now recommends just 6tsp (25g) for adults. Roughly, you divide the grams by four to get the teaspoons.

I am a sad woman in the supermarket, squinting at the “carbohydrates (of which sugars)” labels. ( A free smartphone app, FoodSwitch, scans labels measuring total fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt and offers healthier alternatives.) Anyway, according to the NHS high sugar is more than 22.5g of total sugars per 100g and low is 5g or less per 100g. A lot of innocent-looking stuff like a boeuf bourguignon or coq au vin packet flavouring is out for being way too high.

I must be on about 1 tsp a day now, allowing for the odd oat cake and glass of red wine (half a teaspoon), which, paradoxically, the stress of the whole project makes necessary. I realise that a significant amount of my previous sugar intake came from bread and rice, and white wine. When I reintroduce a fruit yoghurt to my son as an experiment, he goes nuts with the sugar rush.

This week’s progress is shaped by a visit to London to see Dr John Briffa, author of the weight loss guide Escape the Diet Trap, who makes sense of these subtle changes in my life. The low energy is my body recalibrating its metabolism, switching its system of fuel from carbs to fats and proteins. “Hang in there,” he advises. “You are going to start feeling a lot better very soon.”

Eat fats to fill up, he says: “Historically, we’ve had this focus on fat but it appears that fat is not inherently fattening. Insulin plays a key role in fat storage and the more insulin you secrete, the more you are likely to become insulin-resistant.” Basically, you eat a lot of sugar, you store a lot of weight.

Briffa is hardline on carbs, even porridge: “just a big bowl of starch”. My constipation is due to a lack of water and vegetables. “I’ve seen hundreds of clients on this kind of diet and none of them suffer from constipation … People weren’t eating granary bread and porridge two million years ago.” (When I quote this back to my husband, he retorts “People didn’t live long two million years ago”.)

I sense my need for clear answers is irritating Briffa. I basically want him to tell me what to feed my kids. Is it not absurd for a middle-class mother, committed to fresh food, to be stressing about a chocolate biscuit and worse, fruit, in itself full of soluble fibre and goodness?

“Look,” he says, “if you have normal kids who exercise, with no weight problems and no history of diabetes, a rule of thumb would be that natural sugars from fruits are OK. But if you brought an obese kid in here, I would certainly be telling you to take the fruit out of the lunchbox. And the granary roll is OK, but only as a vehicle for getting a healthier filling inside them. I can’t tell you that a biscuit as a snack is good. It has no nutritional value at all.’

On Valentine’s Day, my son gives me a shortbread heart biscuit covered in pink icing that he has made at playgroup. I eat it in an instant because it was made and given with such love. It’s delicious. What could matter more than this?

 

 

 

 

Week Three

Two people tell me I look “fresh”. I haven’t been “fresh” for years. I’m waking up refreshed, which I’ve been craving for the last 10 years. Briffa had predicted this: my blood sugars have stabilised.

The children seem to have forgotten about cereal and fruit juice. We make our own pizza on Saturday night. Working mostly from home means I’m around at teatime, making it easier to control and plan the menu.

I’ve abandoned kale smoothies, which even Briffa said were hardcore, and we’ve settled into a scrambled egg/granola/yoghurt breakfast routine, with a bit of Weetabix for them too (shoot me). I’m working out that I resent hidden sugars more than the obvious sugars. In other words, yoghurts, sauces and cereals are worse than biscuits for me because I consciously choose to allow the biscuits in moderation.

Being the mother of three girls is a factor. Perhaps an important change in women of my generation is that none of us wants to create in our daughters food/body issues from things having been “forbidden”, hence the biscuits in moderation. But my school-age girls surprise me: they have already learnt about traffic light food labelling in class. I never got any of this as a child.

With a history of mild dieting (and teenage years of pretty extreme dieting), I am resisting the urge to get on the scales. This is not about being on a diet. I have to keep reminding myself of James Duigan, personal trainer to Elle Macpherson, who in his own books agrees with Briffa: “Sugar is a nuclear fat bomb exploding all over your body,” he says. The magic formula is to fill up on good fats and proteins and stabilise your blood sugar. So I continue to eat and snack on (mostly) good fats: nuts, avocado and a bit of cheese. I relax about bacon. After three decades of anti-fat programming, this feels like I’m breaking some kind of diet law.

The week closes with a spectacular display of bad behaviour. During a dinner party, I knock back a lot of prosecco (the worst), red wine and potato gratin. At the end of the evening I throw up in our bathroom. Classy. This has to be the sugar since I’ve drunk more before and not been such a wreck. I feel poisoned.

WEEK FOUR

I go running four times! A miracle given how I felt in week one.

The children and I agree to photographs in our home with all the food and drink we have cut out. Piles of it are laid on the table. My kids fall upon the sugar stuffs like locusts, clinging the packets to their chests and shouting requests for smoothies, chocolate bars and jelly babies stuff they had supposedly forgotten about. They are slightly out of control and it panics me. This, is what happens when food is forbidden. I resolve to undo this psychology of the forbidden food by calibrating them ever so slightly in the opposite direction next week, when it’s over.

As the week draws to a close, I feel relief like a convict waiting by the prison gates. On day 31, I wake up and the girls present me with chocolate cup cakes they have made in secret to celebrate. I eat one because my eldest daughter wants me to. I go downstairs and find a box of Belgian chocolates. I taste one. You know what? I don’t even like it. Only Gwyneth Paltrow could be more annoying than that.

POSTSCRIPT

Two weeks after my 30-day diet ends, it pains me to say that I continue to eat in the same way. I thought I’d be liberated free from the tyranny but my palate has been retrained. I find bread heavy now. I don’t want rice or chocolate biscuits or pasta. Protein fills me up and keeps me going. I don’t buy juice, smoothies, yoghurt or Cheerios for the children and I carry on putting raw vegetables and nuts alongside fruit in their lunchboxes. I’m certainly not going to be a militant anti-sugar mother, but I cannot find it in my heart to allow them a can of Coke, however much it’s “a treat”.

 

They continue to have their two chocolate biscuits after school, though, along with their treats on Saturday, whether it’s popcorn, pizza or an iced bun, but I am now more conscious of their daily tally. Two biscuits, with juice, combined with a banana and grapes and perhaps a pasta sauce and a bowl of porridge with honey? That’s too much sugar for my children in one day.

I don’t believe that the levels of sugar my children eat compromise their health. They are fit and slim. But equally, I’m not prepared to be hoodwinked by products stuffed with hidden sugars. Thirty days of being on this diet has, ultimately, made me sugar-aware rather than permanently sugar-free.

And only now can I say it: if I carry on, I’ll drop a jean size too, although for the first time in my life, that’s really not the point.

Courtesy: The Telegraph

Over the years Nigerian women have frowned at some political, economic and social issues that affect them. Now that the Confab is here to make some changes, Yetunde Oladeinde spoke with some stakeholders on their expectation

ONE of the things women have frowned at regarding the ongoing National Comference is the abysmally low number of women nominees. A critical look shows that of the 492 delegates, only about 72 positions, which is about 14.6 per cent, are set aside for women.

While representatives include women in some critical categories like women’s groups, labour representatives, CSOs, state government, FCT and the Federal Government of Nigeria, a number of stakeholders opine that gender balance should be the criterion for all other categories, particularly political parties, organised private sector, persons living with disability, and professional bodies.

Uche Azotani, a politician and member of the Women for Equity and Fairness Organisation of Nigeria (WEFON), believes that the issue of 35 per cent affirmative action is still very important to increase women’s representation at all levels. She says that “We have, however, gone beyond this and we are also asking for equal representation. Also, any position that has a man as president, a woman should be the deputy. Citizenship rights should also be addressed. This is because while men marry foreign spouses and their rights are automatic, it is not the same for women who marry foreign spouses. In addition to all these, we also have issues with ethnic and inter tribal marriages which affect women, especially those in politics and public life. I also think that the issue of independent candidacy should be considered.”

Bishop Priscillia Otuya of Mothers of the Nation Global Mandate states that the nation’s security should be uppermost on the agenda. “We wake up every morning to hear one gory news and we are bewildered. What is going on has defied solution and we also need to compare notes. We all know the story of Nigeria; some people forced us all into the marriage called Nigeria.”

Change, she adds, would come when everyone is sincere and ready to make a difference.”God-fearing women in Nigeria must agree to back the will of God in Nigeria. God will give us a divine strategy to salvage our country. For the sake of the people, there will be no war in this country and God will fight the enemy for us.”

She goes on to stress the need for women to be recognised and given a better treatment by their spouses and counterparts at work. “Everywhere you turn to, you hear men say Nigerians are bad, but I say that Nigeria on its own cannot be bad. A number of Nigerian men deal with their wives treacherously and these things are usually swept under the carpet. Sadly, depriving the poor of their rights is a dilemma that we live with these days. There are countless youths in our prisons for doing nothing. Our government must have good intentions, but a number of people put in positions have bad intentions. We need to have a general reorientation to achieve the desired change.”

On her part, Titilola Adisa, the president of Business and Professional Women, Lagos Club, issues around the economic empowerment of women must be given priority at the confab.” We have a number of professional women who are doing very well and it is better if avenues for their uplift are created. Participants must push for gender-friendly policies that would make the future better for women to get to the top without hindrance and for everyone.”

Adisa continues: “I also belong to the network of women in business and, overtime, it has been found that women find it difficult to access funds that have been earmarked for them. It would therefore be a forum to address some of the constraints affecting women and chart a positive way forward. The nation’s infrastructure, especially electricity must be looked at critically so that female manufacturers can maximise their profits and be able to compete favourably with their colleagues in other parts of the world. In addition, we believe that the issues around social security should be addressed at the confab because once this is guaranteed, it would reduce corruption. ”

Ada Agina Ude, activist and Executive Director, Gender and Development Action (GADA), says what the women are taking to the confab may not be totally different from what everyone is expecting. “First, I must say that representation is poor. In the list of 24 sent in by the civil society only seven people are women and there is no single woman from the South East. We actually sent a letter via email to Pius Ayim on this but we have not received any response yet.”

Ude goes on to add that the needs are in line with the theme for the 2014 International Women’s Day. “This we hope would bring about genuine unity for the nation. We also expect that there would be no more discrimination and Nigerians would be able to live in any part of the country without fear of being killed.”

Ude continues: “When violence breaks, the men are our sons, brothers and husbands and so genuine unity is very important. We also want the confab to entrench respect for people’s rights and the fact we are the same no matter our status in life. It is important for us to be assured that anywhere we go to you can be sure that your tomorrow is guaranteed. In addition to all these, we would like them to look at all the discriminatory laws which make women second class citizens.”

According to Mrs. Fayo Williams, the first vice president of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Associations Network of Entrepreneurial Women, this would definitely affect the contributions of the women. “The list of delegates excluded some critical interests groups where women were significantly represented especially the entrepreneurs and the vast majority of women in the rural areas who do not belong to any formal groups but were engaged in various trades and vocations that contributed to enriching the Nigerian economy.”

ON Saturday, 15th March, 2014, women of the Lagos branch of the Ansar Ud Deen Society gathered at the Yaba Bus Stop, Lagos. It was the venue of its annual health walk, and they were dressed in green and white attires singing and chanting choruses to drive home their message. They took off by 8.30 am walking through streets like Herbert Macaulay, Borno Way, Jebba Street to Abeokuta Street with excitement in the air.

According to Risikat Olajide Oki, the state chairperson of the council, there is a clear evidence that physical activity, including walking, has substantial benefits for health. “At different forums, we try to inform our women that walking and health are very important. We also go on to talk about the type of walking they need to indulge in from time to time. Here, we are talking about walking that produces substantial health benefits.”

Tined Bambe, one of the coordinators of the event, says women need to take good care of their health. “I must say that the turn-out this year is very encouraging. We have participation from all the 37 branches spread across the state and there is a lot of excitement in the air. I think we need to do this more often and give priority to our health and wellbeing as women.”

She adds that: “I must also say that apart from walking, this is also an avenue for the women to network and socialise. A number of our women who are health personnel have also brought their expertise on board, counselling others on how best to manage themselves.”

Princess Ramat Adeyinka Ola, the Committee Chairperson of the event, states that the walk is part of the organisation’s activities to develop the total woman. “Health is wealth, and on a continuous basis we have brought this awareness to our women. Walking is a simple health behaviour that can reduce rates of chronic diseases and ameliorate rising health care costs not just for the woman but everyone in the family.”

The state chairman of the society, Alhaji Nurudeen Okuleye, who participated in the walk, describes the outing as fantastic. “You can see that the women are walking and laughing, and this would certainly help to ease a lot of tension. My advice to the women’s council is that they need to have this kind of event in all the branches, and to crown it all the state council will organise a general walk for everyone.”

Evidence of the health benefits of walking comes largely from epidemiological studies. When interpreting the data from such studies, it is necessary to consider several methodological issues, including the design of the study, confounding by other lifestyle behaviours, and confounding by other kinds of physical activity. Walking has the potential to have a large public health impact due to its accessibility, its documented health benefits, and the fact that effective programmes to promote walking already exist.

Apart from promoting women’s health issues, the Ansar Ud Deen society has also introduced liberating rules on the role of women in the community and rejected the seclusion of women. Though the most active women members were wives of the officers of the society, at the beginning the women’s wing has attracted wealthy women financiers and professional women over the years. In its early years, women played major factors in the financial solvency of the society and their contributions were noted by the association in its first published newsletter in 1924.

Armed with a Law degree from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, Bukola Fasuba was on her way to fulfilling her childhood dream. But that was before she fell in love with business. Once the lure of business captured her, there was no looking back for her. She spoke with Sunday Oguntola and she reveals how she finally plunged headlong into it.

HER love for shopping opened her eyes into the profitability of trading. Fasuba naturally finds shopping a delight. She enjoys traversing markets in the city of Lagos, looking for the best products at the right prices. While many of her status would be repulsed by traversing the ‘dirty, rowdy’ local markets, Fasuba simply revelled in it.

But such exercise became almost impossible when she joined the corporate world. The former branch manager at Funmec Oil & Petroleum Nigeria Limited became too engrossed to shop. This inhibition finally led her to the conception of an online shopping site. “I saw the needs for those who are working and have no time to go to the market for shopping. I also experienced it while working. So, I just thought I should fill the gap,” Fasuba recalled.

Selling to working women

Her site, www.mhqstore.com, has become one of the leading grocery sites in Nigeria. There, working class women can order daily needs and even food items such as pepper, goat meat, melon, catfish and even spinach without leaving the comfort of their offices. Ordered goods are either delivered at their offices or homes free of charge.

Fasuba said the experience has been more than enthralling. “I am just excited that we are filling a gap and helping women solve a big challenge. Many of them are relieved they can get whatever they need without being physically involved,” she enthused. Many of them, she explained, gladly buy into the service because it saves them from the stress and hassles of physical shopping.

To eliminate the initial doubts over such informal transactions, Fasuba said the firm has had to provide the option of payment on delivery. She said: “One of the risks is that people don’t trust you yet. They have not met you; they don’t know you. So, they don’t want to pay.

“One of the options we offer is payment on delivery and a lot of customers are buying into it. Once they do payment on delivery, they start trusting you and can pay online into your account.”

Winning the price war

Pricing is a critical factor in online shopping. Most Nigerians are wary of the extra charges by e-commerce sites. But Fasuba said such concerns have been taken care of. The firm’s goods are not only cheap but also competitive in terms of pricing. This, she explained, is because of the advantage of bulk purchase and procurement from direct suppliers.

She realised there is a pricing war that only those with competitive edges can win. According to her: “We are able to price low because our overheads are quite low and we get direct supplies. We cut out a lot of costs that increase the prices of products.”Most of the goods with relatively long shelf life are stocked in MHQ and supplied on demands. But the challenge is really with the fresh goods. To ensure they are delivered fresh, Fasuba said the firm insists orders must be placed before 10am everyday for delivery in any part of Lagos. Those placed thereafter are supplied the following day. This, she explained, is to ensure the goods, such as frozen meat and food stuff, are delivered fresh.

The firm also has a strict policy on quality control with the employment of a control officer that certifies every good is in good shape and quality before delivery. “You can’t tamper with quality in this business. You either get it right or you get out of the sector,” she stated.

Handling logistics

For many online shopping sites, logistics remains a big headache. MHQ is not immune.

But Fasuba said the firm has a policy of constant communication with clients. “Traffic can be terrible in cities in Lagos,” she began.

“So, we give like a three-hour window to deliver from the point of order placement. If something happens on the way and we can’t get there on schedule, we call, send texts and mails to say we are sorry and will soon be around.”

Though delivery is free, MHQ insists every order must be at least worth N3000 to be valid for free delivery.

Next level

Forever a forward-looking entrepreneur, Fasuba is already looking into the future. The next level for the business, she said, is producing goods as against merely selling them. “We deliver the fresh goods but we want to produce our own goods in the nearest future,” she stated. “We want to have our products and go into farming. That will help us ensure we determine the quality of goods sold.”

So what happens to law? “You know the funny thing is once you have learnt it, you have learnt it. Law actually helps me a lot in my business. I assure all the legal angles are covered.”

But she said she is never going back to wearing wigs. “I prefer trading and encountering customers from all walks of life. I like to relate with customers on a regular basis,” she said.

Is this what she wants to do for the rest of her life? Fasuba answered in the affirmative without blinking. “It is a full-time job; no more law for me. No more wigs; only trading and business.”