Avoiding sugars (and other carbohydrates) has often been discussed here.
And use of sweeteners has often been criticised.
One line caught my eye: People should reduce the sweetness of the diet altogether, starting early in life, to improve their health.
Many years ago, when supermarkets started to offer sugar-free or low sugar formulations, I had hoped they would reduce sweetness. There are relatively few commercial foods which are not too sweet by far - whether baked beans or yogurt.
Replacing sugar with sweeteners does not affect weight control in long term, WHO says
Long-term use of substances such as aspartame could raise risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, analysis finds
I tried an interesting experiment with chocolate that is going well for me, if chocolate is a problem for you, you might like to consider something similar. I was finally convinced that good quality dark chocolate is actively good for you rather than bad, so I thought I would train myself up to enjoy it.
.
I started to buy myself one of the large 100-ish gram sharing bars of chocolate each week, and eat a few squares after my evening meal every day. I started with a chocolate percentage I knew I would enjoy immediately, like 50% cocoa. I ate my squares slowly, letting them dissolve in my mouth in small pieces like the chocolate experts suggest. Then the following week I introduced a bar of the next highest percentage I could find. I would usually have some of the previous week's bar left, so after that I would mix and match my squares, and often alternate taking pieces of different percentages to compare the flavours. Then each week I would continue in the same way, finding a bar of a higher percentage of cocoa.
.
At some points when I tried my new bar at the start of the week, I would almost laugh at how challenging or unpleasant it was, thinking that no one could possibly eat that for pleasure. But I continued to stick with having a piece every evening, and really concentrating on all the flavours, and slowly I started to enjoy them.
.
I progressed all the way up to enjoying 90% bars in a couple of months. I am still working on 100% cocoa, but after a year or two I am starting to quite like some of them. The great side effect with darker chocolate is that you don't need very much to feel satisfied, it is so rich and takes a bit of effort to really appreciate, so if is hard to overeat on it. I now find anything 75% or below is too sweet for me, all you can taste is sugar and there isn't much chocolate flavour.
.
I now always have some dark chocolate in the house, and allow myself to continue with having a few squares after I eat in the evening. Another great outcome is it gives me the satisfaction of having some kind of dessert, a treat to look forward to after I've eaten, so it helps me to avoid other kinds of sweeties, too.
.
The harder question is where to source this good quality chocolate. Unfortunately nothing they stock in supermarkets can really be called quality. Though I think the better supermarket bars are tolerable/okay, and as part of my exploration of chocolate I have tried out a lot of Green & Blacks, Lindt, and some of the own brands. In Asda, which I know the best, the 'extra special' dark bars are just as nice as their name brands. I had a look at Tesco and they seem to possibly stock fewer of the high cocoa content name brands, and I didn't enjoy their name brands as much. All worth trying, though! I am a big fan of the 90% Lindt bar, and personally I don't much like any Green & Blacks.
.
For fancier chocolate, the term to easily find is 'craft chocolate', usually single origin and handled bean to bar by the same manufacturer. It's quite expensive, and the cheaper end, which I tend to stick to, are around £4-5 per bar. You can sometimes find some in the more expensive supermarkets, I've also found one in Holland & Barret, but they never had them again. Abel and Cole the vegetable box company has some.
.
The main place you can be guaranteed to find them, and again quite pricey, is cocoarunners.com/
If you can afford it their tasting evenings sound great and can be done online, and their themed selection boxes and subscription. But I have never tried them, as my budget is quite tight I have tried to get some of the flavours at the cheapest price, which I have still found brilliant. I also read a lot of their material to help me search for chocolate in other places.
.
To save you trawling through the search bar there, some of the brands I've tried and would recommend, all at the cheaper end. For all of these I have found the odd bar available in places like Ebay or fancy shops as well as from the specialist website:
.
- Zotter, Austrian firm who do a great variety of bars from different locations at different percentages of cocoa. Comes as two smaller bars in the same package. I've also enjoyed their tasting packs of tiny bars.
- Willie's Cacao, A British company, again you can choose bars based on their origin and percentage. Also come as two smaller bars inside the box.
- Original Beans, I believe this is also a British company, most bars are named for their cocoa variety and most seem to be limited edition. You can read a lot about the region and community the beans are from inside the package.
.
As you can see, getting into quality chocolate can kind of be a whole hobby of its own 😅 A bit like coffee or wine for those of us who aren't able to partake.
.
Edit:
A couple of podcasts that convinced me dark chocolate was worth getting into:
The Zoe Podcast with Tim Spector (very good podcast in general):
Some of us don't have to try lol , i've always preferred dark chocolale .. as a kid i used to ask for a massive bar of Bournville instead of Easter Eggs (yes i know Bournville is nasty now , but it was 1975)
I allow myself to buy Green and Blacks whenever i can afford it ~ as far as i'm concerned dark chocolate comes under 'necessary expenditure /nutritional supplements' (iron, phosphoros .. all sorts of goodies )
And many commercial savoury foods are way too sweet. Years ago I gave up sugar for well over a year. I wish to goodness I'd not allowed it back into my life but perimenopause was evil. I always hated sweetener so I just used a bit of coconut sugar if I needed a bit of sweet in something and the results were amazing. Weight dropped off (but I was also low carbs) and I felt great.
If, at that time, I had something commercial and sweet it would almost make me gag. Sugar (and salt) are substances we get used to very quickly and we then can't taste them so need more to do the same job. I know that now, I'm stuck back on the sugar bandwagon and yet I eat really sweet things and just want more without noticing how sweet they are.
Last night we had a Dishpatch meal, restaurant quality meals delivered to be cooked at home. It was a Caribbean coconut curry with other bits added. The desert was a kind of cheesecake. The best bit was that the crisp base was large pieces of crispy toasted coconut and other nuts and the topping wasn't very sweet at all. There were little cubes of mango to put on top and they were the sweetest part of the meal. That's a desert like they should be.
I desperately need to go back to sugar-free, but with wonky thyroid and HRT, I'm not able to motivate myself to do it.
There have been long periods in my life where I've been sugar-free - and sweetener-free because I find them disgusting. It hasn't made any difference to the way I feel, and hasn't made me lose any weight, either. I wonder why it works for some and not for others...
I don’t believe sweetners do work. That’s why obesity is a huge problem. People are fooling themselves that sweeteners are helping but the reality is that they simply drive people to want more and more sweetness in their lives.
I cook all my own food and never buy takeaway or ready made supermarket meals. I eat regularly throughout the day, so my body knows it doesn’t need to hold onto food. There is always more coming. I am a tall skinny person. I don’t understand why, given how much I eat but that is the reality. I would not have been unusual in the Forties, fifties and sixties, as almost everyone in England was thin. The culprit is ready made supermarket food, takeaways and food availability 24 hours a day in every town across the country.
Well, I lived throught half the forties, all the fifties and all the sixties but I was definitely not thin.
I've been saying for years that artificial sweeteners are a bad idea. I fought tooth and nail to get my daughter to stop them - she's been off them for about 15 years now - because they just do not have the desired effect and can have dangerous side-effects.
That's not the culprit for me. We eat mostly home cooked, and my husband is a great creative chef, organic whole foods. We do have takeaways sometimes and go out to eat sometimes because life is for enjoying too. But these things are not enough to have turned me into the lump I am. My metabolism is broken by thyroid issues and menopause.
There have been moments in my life when I wasn't overweight - I was what I consider to be the real me! lol And I now know that they were the times I had a Hashi's 'hyper' swing, and all the water-weight dropped off.
The last time I was 'me' was after a two week stay in hospital on a diuretic drip, peeing non-stop 24/7. Lost over 30 kilos in those two weeks. All the water drained out of me and I looked skeletal. So, I'm pretty sure I'm not fat, as such, I'm swollen. Water-logged! The skeletal phase lasted for about two years before I started to swell up again. And, as my thyroid is now dead, so no more 'hyper' swings, there's not much I can do about it. Just taking water tablets doesn't work.
Ha, not sure I’ve ever had one of those (an unexpectedly slim phase I mean). I’ve eaten dust for months and lost it that way (Cambridge diet sort of thing) and interestingly, if I get very stressed I go right off my food (it’s quite the barometer of just how messed up I am).
I was however painfully skinny as a small child, to the point where everyone was worried about me and let me eat whatever I wanted. That caught up with me the moment puberty hit, at which point I blew up like a barrage balloon and have struggled ever since.
Hormonal imbalances seem to have something to do with this, just not sure that it’s ever been all about my thyroid. Of course, the media tells me I’m just greedy. I beg to differ—not as simple as that.
It definitely is not as simple as that! I have never been able to lose weight by dieting. And I've tried all sorts of different diets over the years. The media has a lot to answer for!
The very best I've ever looked was when I was 20. I was suddenly very poorly with glandular fever and with it hepatitis and some sort of fungal overgrowth in my mouth and throat which was intensely painful. I was in hospital for about 10 days with that and in bed at home a lot longer. I couldn't even swallow water without intense pain so I didn't eat for ages. As I started to recover, I looked like a leggy film star, or a colt. I have never looked as good before or after. I could not stand up for more than 3 minutes without my legs shaking so much I had to sit down, but boy did I look good lounging in the deckchair in the garden. I have the photo to prove it. I don't want to be that sick again though.
I think a great deal of my weight issue is water retention. I'm about to experiment with my HRT and see if I can find a way to reduce it a bit. Some days I can barely do my jeans up. Another day I need an extra hole in the belt. Some evenings my feet look almost normal. Others the swollen ankles are huge.
Well, as I said above, being on a diuretic drip for two weeks did get rid of it for a couple of years, but it was in no way permanent! And, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, it was two weeks of hell. Apart from that, I've never found any way of dealing with it. Having a Hashi's 'hyper' swing did get rid of it temporarily but you can't have those to order. So, I really don't know what one can do. And I've lived with it for the past 70 years!
Sounds about right; I think it’s been since I hit 40 or thereabouts that the bloating’s gone nuts. In this respect, HRT is not the saviour I’d hoped for!
I wasn't very low carb for over a year and did great on it. I had no thyroid issues then. But when the weight loss stalled, rather than being grateful for my new size I tried to force it to keep going and to do that I fell down the Keto rabbit hole. People told me to expect I might feel like I had flu for a couple of weeks and then I would feel wonderful. Well I felt like I'd been hit by a truck for many weeks and when I backed off that experiment and increased carbs again, I never recovered. Not long after I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Trying to go Keto ruined my body. I would never recommend it to anyone.
Yes I tried Keto once (reading Sarah Myhill at the moment too) and I did everything correctly. However if I remember rightly there was some test you could give yourself that showed you were indeed burning fat. After all the sacrifice, my body never could burn fat - according to the testing. Just returned to a paleo style of eating with ‘good quality’ carbs. No gain. No loss. But I do feel better. It’s giving me difficulty with Myhills book as well as still not getting to grips with adrenal issues. Could of course be connected to being undiagnosed hypothyroid at the time?!
The sugar-free period for me was also a gluten free, diary free and low carb in general period. I think that's why I lost weight. But goodness eating was hard work and as for trying to have a cup of tea... It was pre any thyroid diagnosis or menopause.
I'm no longer prepared to do much of that again. But I would like to give up sugar.
Sweeteners are horrid, apart from some Stevia sometimes. The other week my husband bought a bottle of Robinson's Lemon Squash because our favourite brand of Rocks Lemon Squash was out of stock. Rocks is organic and only has sugar in it. Also not too sweet. The Robinson's has reduced sugar (and wild abandon with aspartame, or whatever they use). I opened the bottle, made up a glass of squash, took a drink. Moved sideways to the sink, spat it out and poured the glass down the sink. It was awful. Tasted like nothing natural at all. Horrid stuff.
Yes, I know what you mean, I can always tell with there's artificial sweetener in a drink, rather than sugar. I was so disappointed last time I went to the UK to find it impossible to get cream soda without AS, because I love cream soda.
One of my sugar-free periods was also gluten/dairy/soy- free, and I lost about two kilos in three months! lol Really not worth the bother if that's what one's doing it for. I was experimenting to see if I could feel better. But, I didn't feel any better at all. So, now, I just eat what I fancy, regardless.
What should be pointed out to the public as well is that sweeteners do not sweeten food as sugar does. Sweeteners are a chemical reaction that alters the brain. Many many years ago the airline Dan Air banned drinks with sweeteners from the flight deck because the artificial sweeteners could cause a euphoria in susceptible people if enough was drunk and it didnt want the airline's pilots to be gung ho as a result.So ask yourself - do I want to take a natural substance called sugar in moderation or do I want to take brain altering chemical?
I’d rather take my chances with sugar, thank you very much! Artificial sweeteners like aspartame taste disgusting (and are suspected carcinogenics) and leave a vile aftertaste… I do have a sweet tooth, which I blame on my childhood in Holland, take sugar in my tea and coffee (demerara) but ready-made food from supermarkets are definitely off the menu. I find it’s just as easy and healthier to get the ingredients and make my own pies, pasties, spaghettis, etc. etc. from scratch. At least I know what’s in them then.
Really love some of the products of the liquorice diaspora from Finland to Holland. If there were some salmiac in front of me right now, it would be gone by lunchtime.
Do you watch Nigella Lawson? She has a special liquorice chest that she pulls out and opens up to show viewers from time to time. A thing of beauty like a writing slope of the Victorian era and full of all the most unusual liquorice products she can find.
she does a liquorice sauce on burnt basque cheesecake. I’ve made the cheesecake a couple of times but not the sauce as I’ve never seen liquorice pellets that she uses
Hmmmm..... Well the link to the Guardian plus the link there to WHO did not state the research behind it's great announcement. As far as sugar is concerned sugar itself is mind altering -, plenty of research showing it lights up the same areas of the brain as Herion. So yes that's what elecits the rush for more. Why do you think food producers love it so much.... We eat more food when it contains sugar as it encourages snacking. There was a fab piece of research done on rats. Rats when given fat on its own or sugar on its own just ate what they needed. But when fat and sugar was combined (they gave them cheesecake) their behaviour totally changed and they kept going back for more. Essentially Michael Moseley said if you avoid the combination you won't snack. Try it. It's actually quite hard to find too. It was in one of his programmes a few years back. As was the sugar is like Herion to the brain.
As for sweeteners.... Dentists love them. It's no coincidence that tooth paste continues to be allowed to have sweeteners in it!
Also I think sweeteners contribute to reflux. Something many of us are subjected to, being hypothyroid. Unfortunately my being Scottish we have something called ‘tablet’. It’s like fudge only brick hard. It’s virtually fat and sugar. No wonder we are called the nation with the most powerful sweet tooth. Apparently biscuit manufacturers try all their new formulas on Scots. They soon let them know if their product is not sweet enough. Irn Bru! I used to be addicted to it but have not really drunk it in 40 years. I tasted some recently (new formula). Yuck, full of sweeteners. For me a little sugar (when needed) does a lot less damage.
Re: sponsorship. You mean like Big Pharma being involved in keeping us ill? Yes you made me laugh but if that came out in an expose, would I be entirely surprised? Non! It’s a bit like coke, there will be other factors in it too. One of my sons-in-law is involved in this ‘stuff’ and he says both sugar and salt foodstuffs are ‘doctored’ basically for the purposes of selling more product. No nod to health effects at all. The government appears to have a very big hand in that too.
actually no.... i want a beef and garlic pie .. i used to live next door to a briliant pie shop . very dangerous at lunch time .. sadly now been taken over by someone who isn't half as good ,so i can't get what i want anyway ... i'll just have to look at picture too.
At a football match in the freezing cold (or indeed posh venue) a hot Scotch pie was welcome. You just knocked off a bit of the hard crust, poured the fat into your mouth, then scoff the pie with no worries of the fat running down your clothes. As they say in Wales “Tidy”.
But sugar is sugar Helvella..... It all does the same thing alters the mind & creates a craving. Infact we need more and more of it to get the same hit. Michael Moseley again. Whether it's natural like honey or not same effect. If you have less in your diet your brain simply needs less to get that hit... I've never experienced a craving with sweeteners but I do with sugar.
Anyway I need to read the research properly & more thoroughly.
My philosophy to food is that a little bit of everything will do good. Too much of anything isn't good for you.
My two children were given access to sweets etc. Now they're in their 30s neither really eats them much. Neither are that bothered by puddings etc. My sister banned them & anything sugary.... On getting pocket money her children all shot down to the sweet shop and binged on them spending it all on sweet things and sweet drinks.
I have a sweet tooth. Sweeteners have helped me to break the sugar cycle craving. My dentist applauds it.
I eat far less sugar these days. I've never used sweeteners as a weight loss mechanism. I'd like to know what they think of sweeteners like Stevia..... Must read more ! !!
Indeed but they all affect the brain. That's my point. Maybe some sugars more quickly than other... As a sugar addict I know it affects me.
And so it appears does sweeteners which is interesting because I definately have not had that craving sugar gives me.
I'm also skeptical on this focus of good or bad. Whatever happened to shades of grey? We had it for years with butter/margarine now it's shifted to sugar/sweeteners.
We had it over microwaves until it was finally proven that using a microwave causes no harm. These days microwaves are also cheap to run so bizarrely better for the environment.... What a turn round!
We had it over red meats and in recent years meat is bad for the environment....
The list is endless....
I mean vegetables for example... The farming processing of them stripping the land and dropping the levels of goodness in veg. Intensive farming.
Milk, cheese.... Not great the cows pollute the environment, full of hormones to produce more..... they didn't when I was little but they do now!
I think your safe with eggs but dont eat too many.
Fish..... Full of pollutants and tiny bits of plastic particles these day.
Fish farms.... Incredibly cruel
I've given up. I eat a little bit of what I fancy. If it kills me a bit earlier so be it. At least I will have enjoyed myself. I drink alcohol sometimes too not much a bit. It's full of sugar & goodness knows what else.
I can't be worrying all the time about what I eat. Life is too short. I want to expend what energy I have on other things that interest me. Maybe I'm just plain selfish....
I will die at some point.... And then it'll be my turn to fertilise the land eventually if my body isn't too polluted that is.
As a country we are over populated given the available land. We don't pay farmers enough so they use intensive farming to scratch a living. We expected food to be cheap & plentiful.... Well no longer, now expensive and we are all learning to use it wisely. No more over shopping & wasting tons of food. We finally are buying just what we really need. That has to be good for the environment even if it's a disaster for our pockets.
I'll stop at this point... Think Ive made me point... Xx
Agree with nearly all of this. I don’t trust “Big Food” or indeed “Big Pharma” to tell me what to eat.
Big Food are of course interested in high profits—I think ultimately, when historians look back at this period, a lot of blame will be levied at processed food of the “pile it high, sell it cheap” variety (though alas, even cheap food isn’t all that cheap at the moment).
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with butter, eggs, meat or even milk—in the UK, cows aren’t actually given hormones and only get antibiotics if they’re sick. If we do start importing from the US, all bets are off—but we’ve been ok with most of that since 1999, when the EU passed a law saying not to add hormones etc.
However, I spent the first 15 odd years of my life being fed processed low fat food (my Mum thought she was doing the right thing—it was the common wisdom at the time). It took another 15 years or so for me to realise “low fat” was a terrible idea.
Funnily enough, when I went on a low carb diet my boobs (originally smaller than my mother’s and my sister’s) grew even as the rest of me shrank. Seems I needed the additional fat to reach my genetic potential. 😂
But now, I just try to eat what I fancy along with a few things that I know I should, like vegetables—everything in moderation and all that. I’m done with “diets”—they just make me fatter.
Well said Jazzw. I didn't know they weren't allowed to give cows hormones. I've been buying organic milk for years ever since my bc diagnosis showed it was estrogen positive. Thanks for bringing me up to date. 😊
I reckon organic milk is still a very good idea. I like to imagine my cows being happy to be milked (I know I’m probably kidding myself but I know farmers have to try a bit harder to qualify as “organic”).
Of course, we’ve left the EU now, so who knows what’s going to happen to our food chain over the next few years…
It doesn't cost much more so if it promotes better lives for the cows and a more enjoyable diet/environment then it's money well spent.... well I like to think so. Sadly I can't afford to buy all organic food.I do love this site.... always thought provoking! 😊
Personally after the last three years I wouldn’t take any notice of what the WHO say or don’t say. Ivor Cummings did a video picking apart one study on a recent ERYTHRITOL scare which is meant to show an increased risk of heart attacks... There’s so much misleading info out there and this highlights how many of these studies are aimed to mislead and misdirect.
Thanks Helvella. Will take a nosey. Seriously though they should take it out of toothpaste if its that bad for you. Twice daily in you mouth. I think its in mouthwashes too.Also my dentist told me to avoid fruit juice & fruit on its own. The acidity destroys teeth. And avoix clean your teeth straight away after consuming them that causes more damage.
So natural is not better either!!
Still back in the medieval times when sugars was rare teeth were in a shocking state.....
I think it's a mindfield. Not that long ago sweetners were promoted & now they're awful. Sugar content has a tax on it in this country. Like diesel and petrol cars... Petrol was condemned & diesal was considered the saviour, now condemned. . Currently electric cars are the bees knees.
It's like watching a merry go round. Seems you can find research to back whatever.
Wasn't it WHO who promoted covid vaccination...... Making out if we didn't ALL get vacinated we would all die. Not true.
I haven’t yet read the article but it comes to no surprise at all that they’re not good for us… all these artificial food items (synthetic) eventually have negative impacts… emulsifiers will be next as it was food colourings years ago, and was looked at at for hyperactivity and making people hypersensitive.
By not eating enough fibre and broad spectrum of foods our guts are missing out on nutrients and micro nutrients, people avoid nuts beans fear of anti nutrients (phytates and oxylates) which actually only cause some people negative effects not all and if you eat a broad spectrum of foods (not same all the time) you’re helping your gut… we need pre and probiotics and fibre protein and fats some good carbs and naturally occurring sugars along with fibre like in whole fruit is way better than a boiled sweet will give. Glucose is taken up but our diet is predominantly sucrose and fructose and conversion from highly refined starchy carbs and these cause weight gain and obviously some have more genetic differences for this to cause a bigger problem.
I don’t have the switch off eating gene I’m always thinking of food if don’t plan correctly, I will overeat even eating the right foods can still lead to weight gain and add in imbalances of hormones be it peri/post menopausal, thyroid, or cortisol eventually will lead to insulin resistance.
From point of being coeliac I find I have to plan way more, take food I’ve prepared or have to grab natural foods, fruit usually, but not always something I want or like to eat as I don’t have a sweet tooth, so nuts is another go too, as if I make a bad choice and go for an ultra refined gf alternatives which is laden with chemicals to make it appear or taste like “normal food “ and a complete no go if avoiding a blood sugar spike, in my case… we all react slight differently to foods and it can be purely be stress lack of sleep also not just the food we are eating as these cause imbalances in hormones too.
None of us will have identical reactions to food…if you read Professor Tim Spectors book he explains even identical twins whose genetic makeup is same their gut microbiomes are different and it’s this can make us more predisposed to problems.
I can't bear the taste of artificial sweeteners, particularly the sickly aftertaste. They just make me feel sick. I'm annoyed that everything seems to contain them these days. I can't use most toothpastes and, having hunted around online for a mouthwash that didn't contain any, the one I bought which advertised itself as containing all natural herbal ingredients........contained sweetener. That went straight down the drain! I despair when I see mothers giving their children 'no added sugar' squashes and yoghurts, thinking they are being a responsible parent. There should be much more publicity about the harm these artificial sweeteners are doing.
If I've understood, the Splenda branding covers a number of products which contain several sweetener compounds. Was it any particular sweetener you noticed?
(Obviously, for you, it doesn't matter any longer as suspect you have stopped using any. And for me, I luckily - never started. But just out of general interest.)
Splenda has Maltodextrin and Sucralose as the main ingredients which ingredient taste like chemicals to me no idea … The problem with fake sugar is the more you use it the sweeter everything you drink or eat needs to be… this was true for me I found that I had to keep upping the amount I used to get the same sweetness…. I know Covid sucked but it did make me realize how horrible fake sugar was for me.
Superb thought provoking thread, thankyou everyone. Saving and will read more carefully.
Diabetes not mentioned though. I am prediabetic but nearly back to normal with diet and possibly levo.
Recently learned just a teaspoon of sugar gets your blood to max levels of blood sugar, then you rely on insulin to keep the levels down and prevent damage!
Pre gluten intolerant and hypo days, I did ketoish diet for some months and felt well but a bit restricted. I stopped having a half teaspoon of sugar in my coffee as my tastes changed. I have never gone back to a sweeter tooth.
I used stevia as one of possibly healthier sweetener, for some puds full fat greek yogurts and it made me eat more and more! Must be a rat. I have always avoided AS on taste grounds and some safety doubts. Sugar is a bit like booze which also makes me eat too much.
The description of migrating/training to enjoy very dark chocolate by @SilverAvocado was superb and chimes loudly.Aldi and Lidl are my tip.
I have given up on pies and pasties as gluten free ones are generally dreadful. Could have done without the Scottish pie pickies!
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Now on 3 grains of Thiroyd daily.
Help to solve my thyroid mystery! 
