“Suuugar…
Yes, pleeease…
Won’t you come and put it down on meee?”
Yas, Adam Levine, yas. But not too much sugar, please!
So I’ve been talking a lot about Food Labels with my clients lately and the topic of SUGAR never fails to come up. And I get it. It’s confusing… confusing to know how much sugar is too much, are some sugars “better” than others, which foods contain added sugar, etc.
Lemme set some of your sugar dilemmas straight. When it comes to SUGAR GRAMS listed on Food Labels, this amount includes both NATURAL SUGARS (such as those found in fruit or dairy products) AND ADDED SUGARS. To find out if a food contains ADDED SUGAR, we have to look to the INGREDIENTS LIST for that.
The INGREDIENTS LIST lists ingredients according to weight used in the product. (So the ingredients that’s used the most in the product is listed 1st… continuing in order of largest to smallest.) You’re looking for SUGAR, but it might be listed under another name:
- brown sugar
- corn sweetener
- corn syrup
- crystalline fructose
- dextrose
- fructose
- fruit juice concentrate
- glucose
- high-fructose corn syrup
- honey
- invert sugar
- lactose
- maltose
- molasses
- raw sugar
- sucrose
- syrup
- table/white sugar
The American Heart Association actually recommends limiting ADDED SUGAR to no more than 24g/day for women and 36g/day for men. Since it’s difficult to know exactly how many grams of ADDED SUGAR are in foods & beverages, it’s a healthful goal to strive for less added sugars in your diet.
YOGURTS really trip me up so here is a comparison of the sugar content (found in a 5.3oz container) of a couple of common Greek Yogurt brands’ PLAIN flavor vs. their next-lowest-sugar flavor:
CHOBANI BLENDED PLAIN / NON-FAT PLAIN (4g)
vs.
CHOBANI BLENDED VANILLA / COCONUT (13g)
DANNON OIKOS NON-FAT PLAIN (6g)
vs.
DANNON OIKOS VANILLA / STRAWBERRY (18g)
STONYFIELD GREEK PLAIN (6g)
vs.
STONYFIELD GREEK BLUEBERRY (15g)
What are your favorite low-sugar food finds?
XOxo,
lj
