Sugar - advice

Find your way – how to make it work

A little of what you fancy

Most people like sweets, fizzy drinks and cakes. And if the rest of your diet is balanced, having a small amount of sugar isn't dangerous. So choose sweet things with care and enjoy them.

To eat or not to eat?

Sugar cravings can be very strong, and some people find it almost impossible to eat small quantities of sweet things and then stop. Work out what works for you, and eat just small quantities of sweet things – or give up sweet things altogether. Or maybe you could cut back a little at a time?

Work it all out

 Have a think aboutwhere, when and how you eat sugary things. What would be easiest to cut back on? And remember – even little improvements help!

Liquid calories

Sweet drinks trick the body into thinking you're not getting lots of calories. Water is by far the best drink for quenching thirst – much better than fizzy drinks, juice, soft drinks and sports drinks.

Hidden sugar

Flavoured yoghurts, sweet cereals, sweet fruit desserts can contain huge amounts of sugar. But adding a little bit of sugar to food to flavour it is nothing to worry about.

Use the Keyhole to help you

The Keyhole symbol can be found on cereals, bread and yoghurt containing little or no added sugar.

The Keyhole

For your health

Products containing a lot of added sugar contain lots of calories but hardly any nutrients. If you eat and drink lots of sweet things, it's hard to get the important vitamins and minerals your body needs without also taking on board more calories than you use.

It's easy to become overweight, which in turn increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Sweet drinks in particular increase the risk of obesity as they contain lots of calories but don't make you feel full.

In Sweden, we eat 17 kilos of sweets per person per year on average, which represents an increase of 150 percent since the 1960s!

For the environment

It's possible that many people don't realise that sweet things and fizzy drinks affect the environment. A bag of jelly beans actually has as much of a climate footprint as a small portion of pork.

Eco-smart food choices

Adults