sugar free baked beans ?

Looking to cut sugar out my diet but am a sucker for baked beans. Any good recipes for home madebaked beans of sugar free versions that are any good ?

We have the Heinz reduced sugar and salt ones. For less than £1 you could try them.

Stick a wee drop marmite in the sauce if you want to perk it up a bit.

You’ll never get them sugar free as there’s a load of naturally occurring sugar in there. Best you can do is reduce the added sugar and have a smaller portion.

We’ve been using http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/baked-beans-canned-pasta/sainsburys-reduced-sugar—salt-baked-beans-in-tomato-sauce-4x420g for years, taste fine.

Make your own and go easy on the treacle and brown sugar.

Cook long and slow (I do big batches on the top of the wood stove) then freeze in foil trays.

Make your own firecracker powder and get your beans really perky. Also use different beans rather than just haricot.

Think I will try making my own. The Heinz are the lowest added sugar I could find but still a fair bit of sugar. Standard beans in supermarket are packed with added sugar, tyically 8 to 9 grams/100gms serving 😯

You cutting sugar out to lose weight or because current gov “experts” say “sugar is bad m’kay”?

Either way, everything in moderation. Age old and best advice. Can’t say I’ve ever got fat from the odd tin of Heinz beans.

And exercise of course. Sugar is calories and you can burn them off.

No nothing to do with the NHS survey, just the same timing. I have pretty much cut sugar out my diet in the past few months but a few things that are heavy on added sugar I want to cut down/out. Mainly doing it for fitness. I will still have a lot of natural sugar as I eat loads of fruit and veg.

The labels don’t distinguish between added and natural sugar do they? With a tomato based sauce there’s always going to be some sugary in rom the tomatoes.

I have reduced processed sugars from my diet on a number of occasions in the past and will be doing similar in the new year. Obviously there are benefits from beans in the form of protein etc. Rather than spend money on expensive ‘low super’ options or spend time making them myself I just drain most of the sauce and along with it goes most of the sugar. Fast simple cheap…if you were going to be really strict if just make them myself but life’s too short!

In 1/2 tin of Sainsbury’s beans there’s only 7g of sugar. How many beans are you eating?! Perhaps sugar isn’t the biggest concern here 🙂

The labels don’t distinguish between added and natural sugar do they? With a tomato based sauce there’s always going to be some sugary in rom the tomatoes.

good point… there’s double the sugar per 100g in this tin of tomatoes I have sitting here (zero added sugar) than in Heinz 50% Less Sugar beans.

I reckon you might have nearly as much sugar from a good dollop of ketchup, so personally not too concerned with baked beans.

I use this recipe.
It uses agave syrup, but I normally use 1/4 of the quantity specified.

Make your own! I’ve got into doing black beans (soaked overnight) then herbs and cook for a few hours. Then mix in with chopped tomatoes and smoked paprika, chilli ect.. Then pop in as much salt as you want!

I use Heinz low sugar ones and then flavour with smoked paprika/pepper/chilli powder in the beans and marmite on the toast.

There’s the question about safety of sugar substitutes used in low/no sugar to consider also.

Personally I try to cook from raw ingredients and control the additives or rather not add stuff that’s not necessary. Not sure about making my own baked beans though.

right.. bit merry now and just finished my first batch 😀 they taste really good:

1. one raw onion and 3 cloves garlic, blended and fried.
2. one teaspoon dulce spanish pimention. pinch of haberno chilli pepper.
3. good gulg olive oil, salt & pepper
4. 2 teaspoons red pesto & 2 teaspoons ground nuts. 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds.
5. around 7 very ripe tomatoes blended and strain the water out
6. one can of harrico beans
simmered and reduced down for around 30 mins.

they really do taste pretty good (could also be the cider). Will put in fridge/freezer and use as required. No sugar or any substitute and 100% healthy 😀 p.s just some fun, can’t see me doing this very often

That recipe looks delicious! 🙂

That recipe looks delicious!

+1, is book marked.

how very STW 😉

<adds mixed beans to mrs b shopping list>

You seem to have left out the chopped chorizo from that recipe

How is sugar going to affect your ‘fitness’? It has nothing to do with fitness.

How is sugar going to affect your ‘fitness’? It has nothing to do with fitness.

well everyone has a different view on this. I am 39 yr old and in good shape and extremely fit already. My thinking is a small amount of man made white sugar is no bad thing, but too much causes spikes (highs and lows in blood sugar) and is not a natural form of energy. I think better sugars are malt, fruit, oats & honey.

Fitness is about your body’s capacity for exercise and pushing the capabilities of your body and your body adapting and increasing its capacity. Food is fuel for your body. Your body does’t care if its fuel is healthy or not or what form it comes in as long as it feeds it. Drugs are not healthy, but drugs will make you fitter. Actually in order to get fitter you need to do exercise and exercise uses carbs as fuel and sugar is a carb, so your body will lap it up just as it will any other form of carb. Sugar is not bad for you as long as you don’t consume more than you need to compared to the amount of exercise you do. It’s only a problem if you eat too much while sitting in front of the telly doing no exercise.

Nothing unhealthy about sugar. Only lifestyle and how much you consume compared to how much exercise you do. You could substitute sugar for honey, fruit, pasta or any other form carbohydrates come in – if you’re not burning it off you’re going to get fatter and risk diabetes.

could also be the cider

That’ll help the no sugar diet 😉