"Whilst dates are naturally high in sugar, they come packaged with beautiful fibre. And that fibre will blunt a blood sugar spike."
I can never get enough energy, the long-lasting, sustainable kind, without the sugar highs and crashes. So I loved having Michele Chevalley-Hedge from A Healthy View on episode 12 of The Lee & Irene Show. Michele is a clinical nutritionist, author and health educator, and Lee says she knows more about sugar and what it does to your body and energy than pretty much anyone she knows. Her books include Beating Sugar Addiction for Dummies and Eat, Drink and Still Shrink. She has spent decades working across elite sport, corporate health and school communities, and she brings the same principle to all of it: facts over fads, nourished not punished.
Michele is a New Yorker who grew up in an Italian family, with six aunts cooking every weekend for 27 cousins. She came to Australia in 1990 to speak at an IBM conference, fell in love with an Aussie within 24 hours and never left. She calls herself the modern day nutritionist, "the one that loves a little bit of coffee, wine and chocolate."
You can listen to the full episode here:
Here are the 3 things I learned from our chat with Michele
1. Divide the sugar number by four
Michele says natural sugars in fruit, vegetables and dairy aren't the problem. "It is the marketing of healthy looking things that have an abundant amount of sugar in them." The most added sugar we should have is six teaspoons a day, and most of us are getting 36 teaspoons or more.
Her trick is to find the sugar number on the nutrition panel and divide it by four. That gives you roughly how many teaspoons of sugar are in it. A can of Coke has 40 grams of sugar, which is 10 teaspoons. A ginger beer is 14 teaspoons, and most muesli bars marketed as healthy are six to eight. A cafe chai or matcha is usually about 10 teaspoons, and one healthy smoothie can have about 21.
Michele also checks where sugar sits on the ingredients list. "If sugar is in the first five ingredients it's often something to sort of be questioned."
2. No naked carbs
Michele walked us through a typical morning. A chai latte and a healthy-looking banana muffin can add up to 15 to 20 teaspoons of sugar before you get to work. Ninety minutes later you crash, and you start wondering what's wrong with you. "Oh my goodness, I've got low iron... Oh, I'm going into menopause and I'm only 30." Michele says it's more likely you're coming down from a sugar high. The higher the spike, the bigger the crash, and at the bottom is where you feel tired, hangry and foggy. So you reach for more coffee or sugar, and it starts again.
Then lunch is a salad with no fat, protein or smart carb, and by 3pm you're hangry again and eating "fat-free jelly snakes, a half a bag". "Every time that blood sugar swings up, it'll swing down."
Her fix is to never eat a carb on its own. "Hashtag no naked carbs." Whether it's a rice cracker, fruit toast, pasta or rice, add some fat, protein and fibre, and "your blood sugar starts to hum along".
At every meal, Michele asks: where's my fat, where's my protein and where's my smart carb? For breakfast, that could be eggs for protein, avocado for fat, and a good piece of bread or last night's roast vegetables for your smart carb. She cooks root vegetables and grains at night and keeps a portion for breakfast and lunch. Lunch is ideally leftovers from the night before, with some brown rice or a can of legumes added. A salad of only greens won't cut it. "That is food for a bird, not a human."
"Do not fear a smart carb for breakfast and lunch. That could be the key to your energy."
Eating on the go? Michele says Guzman y Gomez and Fishbowl work if you build your own bowl with extra protein and avocado. Skip the fried chips.
3. Swap your sweet treat for something with fibre
I told Michele I'd started swapping my after-dinner chocolate for dates, and I was so happy to hear her say, "I love that little nudge." Dates are naturally high in sugar, but they also have fibre, which slows down the sugar spike.
If you do want chocolate, go for dark. Michele says a good quality dark chocolate has about half the sugar of milk chocolate, and it comes with iron. For the ones that taste best, see how I ranked Lee's healthy chocolate list by taste. Have it during the day, because chocolate at night can mess with your sleep. If you need something sweet at night, she suggests a cinnamon or licorice tea, double or triple bagged.
My favourite tip from the episode is a date with peanut butter and cinnamon on top. Michele says you don't need a health food store for good peanut butter. You'll find ones made from just peanuts at Coles and Woolworths, like Pic's and Mayver's.
Michele's sweet swaps
Michele isn't against sugar. She wants you to enjoy your food, without the extremes. "You should feel nourished, not punished." Here's what she reaches for.
Instead of soft drink: sparkling water with a splash of fruit juice, lemon, lime or fresh herbs.
Instead of a cafe chai or matcha: one sweetened with monk fruit, stevia or natural vanilla. Michele says The Healthy Chef makes some outstanding drinks like this. Or have a hot tea with a teaspoon of maple syrup or honey.
Better sweeteners: coconut sugar, honey, dates and pure maple syrup, plus stevia and monk fruit.
What to skip: sugar alcohols ending in "ol", like mannitol and sorbitol. They let a product say "no sugar", but they can leave you bloated. Michele says the research on artificial sweeteners isn't conclusive yet, so she sticks with stevia and monk fruit. She even tells people at her talks, "I would rather people have a real Coke rather than a Diet Coke."
Listen to the full episode
We also talked about the gut-brain connection and the SMILES trial from Deakin University's Food and Mood Centre, where people ate real whole food from Coles and Woolworths for 12 weeks and their mood improved. You can listen to episode 12 on Spotify.
About the Author
Irene Falcone is the founder of Clean Nectarine and co-host of The Lee & Irene Show. She started her first clean beauty business in 2011 with $100 in her garage and grew it to $20m in four years. She has spent over 15 years reading the backs of beauty and wellness labels, is a Telstra Business Women's Awards winner and an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, and has been featured on A Current Affair, The Project, Sunrise, Channel Nine Mornings and Sky News.
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