" Charlotte's Cupcake Corner: Sugar free fiasco

Thursday 19 March 2015

Sugar free fiasco

Hello there! It's been while hasn't it? So lovely of you to pop by again afterI've  abandoned the blog for so long - thanks đŸ˜€
It's the good old "sugar free" debacle that has dragged me back here. A couple of weeks ago, I got my knickers in quite a twist about it, after I saw a tweet from Red Magazine.

I've been trying out a few flapjack recipes for the family, trying to get one that tastes like our old version of a flapjack but has the nutritional value of a far healthier version - which all of us thought was closer to rabbit food! The tweet links to a list of recipes from Davina's latest book. The name of the flapjack recipe being specifically "sugar free flapjack"

Sugar free? Ooh this could be interesting - I thought so j clicked on the link...only to find the following recipe come up:

Now, whilst none of these ingredients are called "sugar" my limited food knowledge told me that combining the dates and honey, I figured there were 400g of sugary ingredients in this bowl of so called "curb your sugar cravings goodness" - right! 

My original family flapjack recipe looked like this 
I think it came out of a Sainsburys magazine, so this "healthier" version had more sugary stuff than my original treat! 

Now I took issue with this for two reasons
1) the recipe is NOT sugar free, it is refined sugar free & that should be clarified 
2) I spend a lot of my time trying to learn about food, nutrition, diets, additives, goodness, brain food etc etc. So I consider myself an interested party and to an extent somewhat informed. However, there are times when I am totally baffled by opposing advice, conflicting opinions, the complexity of trying to do the right thing for your family. I therefore feel passionately that this specific kind of misinformation is very irresponsible and confusing for people who are trying to do the right thing. I tweeted to this effect (although only in 140 characters!) and received the following repsonse from Davina herself 
I'm afraid to say that this made me even more mad! I have not purchased the book. I have no intention of going entirely sugar free - rightly or wrongly - who bloody knows?! 

But I cannot see the sense in choosing an exceptionally high in sugar recipe if you are starting a path to reduce your sugar intake! I am led to believe that she may not have actually written a large part of this book herself. Yet her tweet sounded as though she was emphatically behind the concept. I wish she or Red magazine would have admitted that the title of the recipe was misleading at least.

In case it's of interest to anyone, this is my latest flapjack recipe, having reduced the fat and sugar considerably. Made in the usual method, with Glutenfree oats. We all love these flapjacks, maybe you will too...



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