4 Weeks Without Added Sugar: Plan, Tips & Drink Ideas

August 14, 2025TEABALLS OFFICIAL | TEABALLS Schweiz | Tee ohne Beutel

Four weeks without added sugar is a manageable period in which to question your own habits and try out alternatives. This article is a practical plan with tips for shopping, everyday life and drinks. What you experience is individual – we do not promise any particular changes, we simply give you tools to get started.

What “without added sugar” means

In this plan you avoid foods and drinks to which sugar has been added. Sugar that occurs naturally in a food (for example in a whole apple) is not meant. The WHO counts honey, syrups and fruit juices as “free sugars”, alongside table sugar. It recommends limiting free sugars to less than 10% of daily energy intake, which is around 50 g at 2,000 kcal a day (source: WHO, “Healthy diet” fact sheet).

TEABALLS Tea Tasting Box with 10 varieties

TEABALLS Tea Tasting Box — 10 Varieties

Drinks are a good place to start: TEABALLS add flavour to your water – with no added sugar and no tea bags. 10 varieties to try; the varieties included are listed on the product page.

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The four-week plan

Week 1: take stock and prepare

For three days, note down what you eat and drink, and mark everything that contains sugar. Typical sources are soft drinks, breakfast cereals, flavoured yoghurt, sauces, bread, ready meals and sweets. Take a look at the ingredients list: sugar hides behind names such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, glucose syrup, dextrose, agave syrup or fruit juice concentrate. Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight – if sugar appears near the top, there is a lot of it.

Then clear out any supplies you do not want to eat during the four weeks and stock up on alternatives, so that you are not tempted at home.

Week 2: switch your drinks

Sugar adds up particularly quickly in drinks. As a guide, Health Promotion Switzerland gives around 13 sugar cubes for 500 ml of cola and around 10 for 500 ml of iced tea (one cube is 4 g). So replace soft drinks, fruit juices and syrups with water, unsweetened tea or flavoured water without added sugar (you will find ideas below).

Week 3: everyday life and special situations

Now it gets practical: at the office, in restaurants, at invitations and on the go, you come across sugar in many places. A few fixed rules help:

Prepare snacks without added sugar, for example nuts, fresh fruit or unsweetened natural yoghurt.
Take a bottle of water or tea with you so that you do not reach for a soft drink on the way.
Let your hosts know in advance, or consciously choose dishes and drinks without added sugar at a restaurant.
Do not go shopping on an empty stomach – fewer spontaneous sweets will end up in the trolley.

Week 4: establish a routine and take stock

Plan your meals for the whole week and note what came easily and what did not. Where did you miss sugar most? Which alternatives did you like? At the end, decide which new habits you want to keep and what you will go back to doing as before. This is your personal assessment – there is no “right” result.

Typical hurdles and tips

When the craving for something sweet strikes

Especially at the beginning, the wish for something sweet often shows up at fixed times, for example after lunch or in the evening. Pay attention to the situations in which it happens and have an alternative ready for precisely those moments: a glass of flavoured water, a cup of tea, a piece of fruit or a short walk. Changing your routine helps too, for example taking a different route to your break or introducing a new evening ritual.

Shopping and meal planning

Sugar is found in many processed foods, including savoury ones such as sauces or ready-made soups. A shopping list focused on fresh, unprocessed foods makes shopping easier: vegetables, fruit, wholegrain products, pulses, eggs, fish and meat, nuts and natural yoghurt. If you cook ahead at the weekend, you always have a meal without added sugar to hand during the week.

Stay flexible: if sugar does end up on your plate once, that is no reason to give up. Simply carry on the next day.

Drink ideas without added sugar

Water with slices of lemon or cucumber and fresh mint
Unsweetened tea, hot or as homemade iced tea
Flavoured water with TEABALLS

TEABALLS are pressed extract pieces: you put 3–5 pressed pieces into 3 dl of water and stir until they have dissolved. None of the 24 varieties (16 TEABALLS varieties and 8 organic varieties) contains added sugar. There are, however, differences when it comes to sweeteners: Energy, Mango, Blueberry & Coconut and Watermelon contain sucralose, while the other 12 TEABALLS varieties and all 8 organic varieties contain no sweetener. If you also want to avoid sweeteners, choose these varieties.

On nutritional values: the product pages (for example Lemon Vitamin C, Energy and Blueberry & Coconut) state 1 kcal per 100 ml, so a 3 dl glass comes to around 3 kcal. For the other varieties, see the relevant product page. On caffeine: Green Tea, Earl Grey, Peach and Energy, as well as the organic varieties Chai Latte, Jasmine Green Tea and Cinnamon Orange, contain caffeine. Energy is not recommended for children or for pregnant or breastfeeding women. The organic varieties can only be enjoyed hot (ideally 60–80 °C) and are naturally cloudy, which means a fine, natural sediment may remain.

To get started, the Tea Tasting Box — 10 Varieties and the Refreshment Bundle (Hibiscus • Mint • Earl Grey • Green Tea • Lemon) are a good fit. You can find the whole range under All products.

Conclusion: four weeks as an experiment

Four weeks without added sugar is an experiment that is much easier to tackle with a clear plan, a well-stocked pantry and alternatives for your drinks. Start by taking stock, switch your drinks first and think at the end about what you want to take into your everyday life.