Ruth - since you have read David's books, you will find a lot of answers to your questions there. You will also find them here in the "Sugar Guides" section. And you can get questions answered at his home page "Get in touch" menu
You might also find Christine Cronau's book "The Fat Revolution" worth reading: http://christinecronau.com/ She advocates reducing carbs intake as well as fructose.
Just briefly, you should not exceed eating 10g of fructose a day. Cane sugar (sucrose) is 50% fructose, so that's 20 grams of sucrose. ( a teaspoonful is 5 grams). You can get that from 2 pieces of fruit each about 100g in weight. As a bonus for eating the whole fresh fruit, which contains fibre, the harmful effect of the fructose is reduced. [The sugar in fruit is BAD! not good. It's nearly all fructose.]
Especially in the early stages you do need to keep a close eye on your sugar intake. Use the "Sugar Guides" here and in the books, read the NIPs [ nutritional information panels ] on all packaged food and avoid anything with more than 2% "sugars". Be especially cautious about so-called "low-fat" foods. When they remove the fat the flavour goes with it. And they replace that with sugar and salt. Yoghurt is OK to 5% because that's milk-sugar which ends up as glucose. Avoid fruit-juice completely - it's like drinking fat! Concentrated fructose. So are dried fruits. Milk, bread, cheese etc are all OK as are most unprocessed meats, beer, spirits and non-sweet wine.
You should also avoid jams, honey, sweet spreads (Nuttella, Promite etc) The safe ones are Vegemite and Rice Malt Syrup (as a honey substitute)( get from Coles). As one author said, we take such small portions of many of these that it's not so important. And David said "party food is for parties" . . . it's OK to pig out occasionally, but not to do so every day!
Cereals can be a trap too - some contain as much as 60% sugar! Weet-Bix and Traditional Rolled Oats are the safest.
Of course most cakes, biscuits etc are off limits. Many savoury bix are OK. Just read the labels. Arnott's "Lattice" are 11% sugar - about the lowest sweet bix.
If you must have sweeteners in your tea or coffee, Stevia looks the best bet. I use Splenda in coffee.
If you haven't already done so it may pay to keep a detailed record of everything you eat for one or two weeks. Using the guides here & in the books, you can work out how much fructose you are taking in . . . you might get a shock!
Good luck, and do keep us all informed of your progress. And remember . . this is NOT a diet. . . it's a way of life :-)
JohnN
