How to use Sugar Awareness Week to inspire healthier workplace snacking

By Rees Bramwell, Senior Nutritionist, Eurest

Sugary snacks in the workplace are expected to be a talking point in Sugar Awareness Week and it’s a debate we will be bringing to our regular Wellness Wednesday advice sessions, reaching your people as they eat in the workplace restaurant.

The key here is not to demonise sugar but to help people understand it better.

So, Sugar Awareness Week, backed by Action on Sugar and launching on 14 November, provides another opportunity to nudge employees into healthier choices through learning and advice.

The first thing to say is that we recognise the indulgence curve that many people experience during the working week.

We don’t adopt an attitude that everyone should cut out treats altogether. It’s about helping people develop habits that are sustainable in a healthy diet.

That means it’s ok to have little indulgences from time to time, as long as the majority of a person’s diet is well balanced. With that in mind, our carefully planned menus are intended to nudge people into healthy, nutritious choices.

Snacks, inevitably, have a role to play and can provide energy at key moments in the working day. But can we encourage people to have them in small portions and less often?

An example of how we solve that conundrum at Eurest is our dessert pots. We deliberately place them in smaller containers than our healthier snacks such as fruit pots.

We also have a range of no-added-sugar baked goods that are excellent snacking options with oat and nut bases, making them filling and full of fibre and protein. We’ll be promoting them even more heavily during Sugar Awareness Week, utilising our Wellness Wednesday displays.

Fruit and nut mixes are a good snack option, as well as certain cereal bars and yoghurts.?Lightly sweetened popcorn instead of a bag of sweets is a better option, too.

Although these come with a caveat, not all are low sugar choices… Another aspect is we want your people to understand food labelling better, in the workplace restaurant but also when they shop in supermarkets on the way home.

My biggest tip in Sugar Awareness Week is to think about sugar in terms of teaspoons.

Sugar is displayed in grams on food labels, but that doesn’t mean much to a lot of people.

It’s useful to know that a teaspoon of sugar weighs around 4g (4.2g to be precise).

So, if a product contains 12g of sugar, there are three teaspoons in there. If you were putting three teaspoons of sugar into your tea several times a day, would you be happy with that? Or would you think it was too much?

It’s a useful way to understand sugar levels better and for our chefs to educate your people in how much sugar they are including in their diet, whether they are at work or at home.

Another education piece is to help people understand there are different types of sugar.

Sugar which occurs naturally, such as in fruit or milk, and sugar which is added – for instance in sugary drinks, cakes and snacks.

For the majority, the most impactful route to reduction is focusing on these added sugars of which adults are recommended to consume no more than 30g (7.5 teaspoons).

The Sugar Awareness Week 2022 theme is; “Breakfast. The most important sweet meal of the day”. You might just be surprised by your go-to cereals, baked goods, yoghurts and jams.

With this in mind we developed our overnight oats and bircher range. They deliver natural sweetness from fruit e.g. dried fruit in 30g portions (1 of your 5 a day), with unsweetened plant based milks, flavour from spices like cinnamon and a high fibre base of oats and seeds.

The goal here is to help your employees be more aware of sugar in their diet and to choose healthier snacking and breakfast options more often.?If we can achieve that, then everybody benefits.