Free Food/Syn Free Food

Alia

Silver Member
We had an interesting discussion in group a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd share it with you all.

Strange as it may sound, there is a difference between free food and syn free food. Food that is classed as free food can be eaten completely freely where as things that are classed as no syns should still be eaten with moderation.

I think it might be helpful if we listed some foods that are free and some that are Syn Free so we can just see if we've been excersising control in the right area.

I'm a bit confused as to which foods are free and which are syn free, so a list would be really helpful.
 
Some of the pasta and sauce packs are syn free food, and in moderation, also the mug shots too, but wouldn't class those as Free Food. Only have these 1 - 2 times a week at the most. Hvaen't seen any slower losses due to them, but know they are just full of "crap", lol.. and not very nutritious. x
 
Free Food and Syn Free Food is the same thing mate. You should ALWAYS eat in moderation, no matter what you're eating.

I think you're mistaking Free Food and Superfree food. Superfree is all your fruits and veggies, stuff it doesn't matter if you binge on... eating a whole packet of frozen broccoli is only going to set you back like 75 calories and zero fat where potatoes, which are Free Food, would do you some damage if you took the 'Free' mantra literally and ate a sack of them a day.
 
Free Food and Syn Free Food is the same thing mate. You should ALWAYS eat in moderation, no matter what you're eating.

I think you're mistaking Free Food and Superfree food. Superfree is all your fruits and veggies, stuff it doesn't matter if you binge on... eating a whole packet of frozen broccoli is only going to set you back like 75 calories and zero fat where potatoes, which are Free Food, would do you some damage if you took the 'Free' mantra literally and ate a sack of them a day.

I'm not mistaking Super Free food and Super Food at all. We had the discussion in our group about Syn Free food and Free Food and our C clearly stated there was a difference and told us that free food can be eaten as the name suggests, freely, and Syn Free food while it has no syn value it should be eaten with a little caution. There are foods that while not free, have less calories or fat (what ever it is that makes them Syn)but do not have enough of that value to make them 0.5 of a Syn and while they are Syn Free they are not exactly Free - I will clarify this with my C at my next WI but it will be interesting to see if any one else has heard this too. She did list some foods that do fall into the Syn Free but not Free area but I can't remember them so will need to check.
 
I think it's a great idea to have a list. Things like muller lights are syn free, but I can imagine that if we ate 20 of them day we would gain rather than lose.
 
I spoke to a friend who has been a SW consultant for over ten years, and she had no idea what this was about.

I (and she) would be really interested to hear more about this idea.
 
My understanding is free and syn free is the same thing, it sounds like a classic case of SW consultants trying to confuse things (again). As mentioned above, all syn free food should be eaten in moderation, taking it to the extreme because it's "free" would result in weight gain if abused. Free food is free food, how you word it doesn't make a difference.
 
I read about this somewhere but cant for the life of me remember where. I thought that free was natural foods with higher calorific value then super free like potatoes for instance and syn free were kind of processed foods such as mug shots and ready meals etc. Ill try and find where I read about it. As far as I was aware both free and syn free food can be eaten freely within reason as long as you do not overdo it.
 
I've just called my C to sort this out and her explanation is much better than mine. If something is classed as Free then it is just that, you can eat it freely but there are some things that come up as zero syns which mean that these foods are not completely free but have a syn value of less than a half or a negable reading and there for if you were to eat stacks and stacks of them then obviously they would add up and you would end up having some syns.
 
Ah, that explains the syn values on the syn thingy on the website! Sometimes it will say "Free Red Free Green 0 syns Extra Easy" and I wondered why that was. Thanks Alia!
 
My understanding is free and syn free is the same thing, it sounds like a classic case of SW consultants trying to confuse things (again). As mentioned above, all syn free food should be eaten in moderation, taking it to the extreme because it's "free" would result in weight gain if abused. Free food is free food, how you word it doesn't make a difference.

I've given the explanation below and it makes perfect sense. To be honest I've never experienced, mine or my previous consultant trying to make anything more complicated than it need be.
 
Sounds like you need two seperate threads - could get confusing have both free food and syn free on same thread
 
It makes perfect sense to me Alia, infact we've had the same discussion at the class I go to. It really helped to get some members weight loss moving again too!
 
We've also had this discussion at my group. It's confusing at first but makes sense. You're much better off eating free food like chicken, eggs and cottage cheese rather than syn free food like pasta n sauces and mug shots.
 
What Alia has said makes perfect sense. For some people it may not seem that eating loads of syn-free food doesn't affect their weight loss in the long run, but in my opinion, I would much rather eat loads of chicken and jacket potatoes than tons of Super Noodles or Mug shots for the benefit of my health, if not for my weight loss.

i do think that SW should make this more clear as some people think that free food and syn free food are one and the same, but they are not.
 
Hi - I'm totally new to this group/site/Slimming World. CanI ask, I thought low fat cottage cheese/low fat yogurt was free? I've just been and picked up some cottage cheese for lunch and a yogurt - checked on the syns database on the slimming world app and it tells me that it has a syn value. I thought they were free - COMPLETELY CONFUSED!! Can anyone shed any light?

Thanks.

Jacqui x
 
I think there's a slight difference between low fat and fat free. Fat free is free, low fat isn't always.
 
What Alia has said makes perfect sense. For some people it may not seem that eating loads of syn-free food doesn't affect their weight loss in the long run, but in my opinion, I would much rather eat loads of chicken and jacket potatoes than tons of Super Noodles or Mug shots for the benefit of my health, if not for my weight loss.

i do think that SW should make this more clear as some people think that free food and syn free food are one and the same, but they are not.

yep im one of those!! until now i have thought free and synfree are the same! :/ now im confused lol.... so is there a list of syn free stuff somewhere? so far, from this thread ive got mug shots and pasta n sauce, neither of which i eat anyway..lol
please od excuse me though, im easily confused!! lol xXx
 
ok this does make sense to me. Like, a syn is roughly 20cal yes? (if no free food allowance) so something coming in at 8 calories would probably calculate on the site as 0 syns. But, eat 10 of them and that's 4 syns! So you can't eat as much as you want without counting. But free food, you can eat one (piece of pasta) or ten (pieces of pasta) and it doesn't count as any syns still.

no idea what would be on the list though! I can't really think of anythin that would be 8 calories LOL
 
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