Here's How to Track Down Hidden Sugar on Food Labels
It's not always easy to tell how much sugar is in foods, even when you're checking the ingredients. Here's what you need to know to decipher labels and spot hidden sugars.
Today, it's widely known that sugar isn't great for our health. While it does provide our body with essential energy, its excessive consumption leads to various health issues, like diabetes and obesity, and can even become addictive. In fact, the WHO recommends limiting daily intake of added sugars to 25 grams. This includes both the sugar we add ourselves—such as in coffee or yogurt—and the sugars added by manufacturers. And that's where it gets tricky.
Sugar often appears in foods you wouldn't expect, like cereals, savory crackers, sauces, or ready meals, where it acts as a preservative. This can be misleading.
To spot added sugar, carefully examining food labels is the best approach. However, it's not enough to only check the carbohydrate and sugar content in the nutritional information; these numbers don't differentiate between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars. Instead, you need to study the ingredient list. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity, not alphabetically, so the earlier in the list, the more ingredients is in the product.
Keep in mind, that sugar can be listed under many different names. Generally, anything ending in "-ose" (like fructose, glucose, dextrose, galactose, saccharose, maltose, or sucrose) is a form of sugar. Look out for other sugary ingredients like molasses, caramel, agave syrup, carob syrup, cane syrup, corn syrup, and maple syrup. Sometimes, sugar is hidden in ingredients like starch, dextrin, barley malt extract, or maltodextrin.
Certain labels can be misleading too. For example, if a product claims to be "sugar-free," it simply means it contains no sucrose—the "classic" sugar from beets or sugar cane, found in white or brown sugar. However, it may still contain other sugars like fructose (from fruit), lactose (in milk), or maltose (from the breakdown of barley or corn starch).
Similarly, "sugar-free" products might still contain complex carbohydrates, like starch (as in some "sugar-free" yogurts), or sweeteners. "No added sugar" means that only the sugars naturally present in the ingredients are in the product, as with many fruit compotes or juices. Lastly, "reduced sugar" means that the product has at least 30% less sugar than a similar product, though it may still be quite sweet. This could be a good alternative to a typical version, but it doesn't mean the product is low in sugar.
A helpful tip: the shorter the ingredient list, the less processed the product. Avoid items with unfamiliar ingredients, as these are usually additives (often starting with the letter "E"). For those who find label reading too time-consuming or difficult, there are free apps that can help. For example, Yuka allows you to scan product barcodes, providing a score out of 100 and showing the sugar content per 100 grams. Handy!