Cookies with no sugar sound healthy, but how healthy are they actually?
When I started on my health journey many years ago, I was a sucker for sugar free products. With limited knowledge about nutrition, I just assumed that if something was sugar free that it was healthier. I mean, we’re taught that sugar is about the least healthy thing there is, right?
But sugar free cookies are still just cookies.
There’s a market for sugar free products if you are diabetic. That’s a much different story. But we seem to gravitate towards sugar free / low sugar products as a means of weight loss, and that is incredibly misguided.
If you want to lose weight, you need to control your calories- there is no way around it. While cutting out sugar may help you achieve a caloric deficit, simply eating “sugar free” foods will do absolutely nothing for your weight loss efforts.
In the above example, these cookies are almost identical in macros. Yes, the sugar free cookies have the tiniest advantage, but they are basically the same. Will choosing the sugar free cookies be healthier than eating Chips Ahoy? Not exactly. Especially if you are sensitive to artificial sweeteners. It’s easy to assume that they would be the better choice, but there really is not much of a difference at all.
Sugar isn’t the problem. Even if it was, consuming sugar free products wouldn’t be the solution.
Always look to the nutrition labels on the back when making your food choices, because they will tell you MUCH more than the labels on the front of the packages will.
