Sneaky Sugar Labeling

As we know, sugar is responsible for weight gain and many other health conditions. 

Eating a whole-food diet is a solution to eliminate added sugar from the diet, but sometimes it can be challenging to switch all at once. Convenience foods (packaged and processed foods) are part of our environment we want them or not. To improve our health and reduce sugar intake, it is important to understand how sugar is hidden in processed beverages and foods.

In North America, there are three main sugar claims that you may find on food labels: sugar-free, no sugar added and unsweetened. It's a common misconception that they mean the same thing, but they're vastly different.

• Sugar-free means that the food contains less than half of a gram of sugar per serving size. This includes any type of sugar that could be found in the food. Alternative sweeteners won’t contribute to the total sugar in a product and are allowed under the “sugar-free” label. Be careful as many companies use tiny serving sizes on the label to ensure the total sugar falls under 0.5 gr./serving when typical consumption is much larger. (Reminder: 1 tsp of sugar = 4 gr. of sugar)

• No Sugar Added means that no sugar ingredients are added during the processing of foods. It excludes the naturally occurring sugar found in the food itself.  

• Unsweetened is a food that hasn’t been sweetened at all:  no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and no natural sweeteners.

By learning how to read food labels, we can become familiar with the many names companies use to disguise added sugar in processed foods. In addition to fructose, glucose, barley malt, cane juice, fruit juice, beet sugar, agave nectar, caramel, corn sweetener, sorghum syrup,  dextrose, and much more can appear in the ingredient list of processed foods. There are more than 60 different names for sugar to watch for: 

Agave nectar - Barbados sugar - Barley malt - Barley malt syrup - Beet sugar - Brown sugar - Buttered syrup - Cane juice - Cane juice crystals - Cane sugar - Caramel - Carob syrup - Castor sugar - Coconut palm sugar - Coconut sugar - Confectioner's sugar - Corn sweetener - Corn syrup - Corn syrup solids - Date sugar - Dehydrated cane juice - Demerara sugar - Dextrin - Dextrose - Evaporated cane juice - Free-flowing brown sugars - Fructose - Fruit juice - Fruit juice concentrate - Glucose - Glucose solids - Golden sugar - Golden syrup - Grape sugar - HFCS (High-Fructose Corn Syrup) - Honey - Icing sugar - Invert sugar - Malt syrup - Maltodextrin - Maltol - Maltose - Mannose - Maple syrup - Molasses - Muscovado - Palm sugar - Panocha - Powdered sugar - Raw sugar - Refiner's syrup - Rice syrup - Saccharose - Sorghum Syrup - Sucrose - Sugar (granulated) - Sweet Sorghum - Syrup - Treacle - Turbinado sugar - Yellow sugar.