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Is sugar always bad? Not necessarily. Many healthy foods
contain naturally-occurring sugar, including fruits, some vegetables, milk,
and whole-grain foods.
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The Harm of Added Sugar
Is sugar always bad? Not
necessarily. Many healthy foods contain naturally-occurring sugar, including
fruits, some vegetables, milk, and whole-grain foods. Sugar is recognized by
the FDA as a nutrient. The problems start when you consider how much sugar is
found in the average Western diet. When you eat too much added sugar (and most
Americans do), it becomes difficult to include enough fiber, vitamins, and
other essential nutrients to your diet while retaining a healthy weight.
If you look at the
nutrition labels of your favorite foods, you can find how many grams of sugar
are lie within. But currently you cannot tell whether that sugar comes from a
natural source such as dried fruit, or if it has been sneaked in with the rest
of the ingredients later. This will change in 2020 when new nutrition labels
will be required, but for now, you have to read the ingredients list carefully.
In general, you should choose foods that have added sugar sources like cane
sugar, honey, dextrose, and high fructose corn syrup low on the ingredient
list.
Spaghetti Sauce
What's in It
Depending on
the brand, store-bought pasta sauce could pack 2-3 teaspoons of sugar into a
half-cup serving. Manufacturers do this to make unripe or out-of-season
tomatoes more palatable, and to preserve the shelf-life of their products.
What's Better
Make it
yourself. By choosing tomatoes that are ripe and in-season, you can enjoy their
natural sweetness without adding sugar. If you’re short on time, buy premade
spaghetti sauce advertised as having no added sugar. But be careful—some
products that advertise “no added sugar” add other sugary-sweet ingredients
like fruit juice instead. Always check the nutrition label.
Granola Bars
What's in It
Granola bars
look healthy. They often have oats, nuts, and other healthy ingredients. But
they also typically come with 3-4 teaspoons of added sugar. The nutrients
usually don’t make all that extra sweetness balance out.
What's Better
Some granola
bars are healthier than others. Avoid the ones with ingredients like fructose,
dextrose, honey, corn syrup, and brown sugar syrup. These are just fancy words
that describe the same thing—sugar. Look for bars with fewer than 8 grams of
sugar according to the nutrition label.
Yogurt
What's in It
Yogurt is milk
fermented with healthy bacteria. It’s probiotic and full of calcium, all of
which makes it healthy. What’s not healthy, though, is all the sugar that gets
poured into the flavored varieties. In a standard 6-ounce container of Yoplait
cherry yogurt, for example, you will find 4.5 teaspoons of added sugar. And
it’s no wonder; sugar is the second ingredient listed on the label.
What's Better
Skip the
flavored varieties and learn to enjoy the tart taste of plain yogurt. Add your
own blueberries, banana slices, or other favorite fruit. You can even add some
sugar or honey yourself—if it’s less than 4.5 teaspoons, you’re doing better
than the store brand.
Instant Oatmeal
What's in It
The oats found
in oatmeal are quite healthy. They provide potassium and iron, as well as
fiber. However the flavored, instant varieties usually pack in a fair amount of
added sugar—about 3 teaspoons worth.
What's Better
You probably
eat instant oatmeal either because it’s oatmeal, or because it’s sweet. If you
love oatmeal, make yourself some stovetop oatmeal. It only takes 5 minutes. If
you want instant breakfast, try a piece of fruit for a healthier source of
sweetness in the morning.
Salad Dressing
What's in It
The salad
underneath is healthy, but what about the dressing you put on top? A serving of
Kraft Thousand Island adds a teaspoon of sugar to your salad, and that’s
assuming you’re satisfied with 2 tablespoons of dressing.
What's Better
You can enjoy
the zesty flavor of dressing without added sugar by making it at home.
Preparing an olive oil vinaigrette takes very little time. Plus you know each
ingredient is high-quality because you chose it yourself.
Breakfast Cereals
What's in It
Everyone knows
children’s breakfast cereals are sugary, but even the adult varieties are often
weighed down with added sugar. Honey Bunches of Oats, for instance, has 3
teaspoons of sugar in every cup.
What's Better
Choose a cereal
with a high fiber count. One cup of shredded wheat serves up 6 grams of fiber
and less than half a gram of sugar. When in doubt, read the box.
Energy Drinks
What's in It
You drink them
for a quick pick-me-up, but energy drinks can also send you into a serious sugar
slump. One survey found that the average 8-ounce energy drink contains 6
teaspoons of sugar. There are even some cans that serve a whopping 27 teaspoons
of sugar—more than half a cup!
What's Better
If you want a
jolt of energy without the added sugar, try unsweetened tea or coffee. Or if
you like the taste of energy drinks, stick with the sugar-free varieties.
Packaged Fruits
What's in It
Fruit,
obviously. But to preserve that fruit, foodmakers add lots of syrup or other
sugars. One cup of canned peaches more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar. A
4-ounce cup of Dole sliced apples in 100% fruit juice may sound healthy, but is
4.5 teaspoons of extra sugar a healthy way to eat apples? Clearly not.
What's Better
Fruit that
isn’t prepackaged is usually healthier. Any fresh fruit is a better alternative
to sugar-laden fruits from a can or blister package.
Coleslaw
What's in It
It’s full of
cabbage and carrots, but coleslaw also comes with plenty of sugar. A cup of
Kentucky Fried Chicken coleslaw serves up about 4 grams of fiber and lots of
vitamin C, but also contains about 6.5 teaspoons of sugar.
What's Better
Healthy side
dishes can be hard to come by. Instead of coleslaw, order a salad with dressing
on the side, fresh fruit, or steamed veggies.
Tea
What's in It
Other than
water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. Although it comes
in several varieties, all tea comes from the camellia plant. In its natural
state, tea has no sugar. However that’s not often how it’s sold in stores. For
example, a bottle of Arizona Green Tea has nearly 12 teaspoons of sugar.
What's Better
Even if you add
sugar to your home-brewed tea, you can control how much. You may even find that
you like the taste without any sweetener. If you really want a sweet beverage,
look for sugar-free options. Some may be sweetened, some may not, but as long
as you’re checking the nutrition label you should be able to find a healthy
option that tastes great to you.
“No Sugar Added” Foods
What's in It
Even if they
don’t add extra sugar, there are ways for food manufacturers to add plenty of
the sweet stuff to your “no sugar added” options. To be labeled “no sugar
added,” a product can’t have refined sugar, corn syrup, syrups, or honey added.
There’s a big loophole though. Food companies can add certain forms of fruit
juice, and these can be very sugary.
What's Better
Be skeptical of
the “no sugar added” label. Sometimes it will lead you to healthier options,
but not necessarily. Always check the ingredients list on the back of the
container, and in particular, scan for fruit juice sources from “no sugar
added” products.
Ketchup
What's in It
Do you eat fries
with a side of ketchup, or is it the other way around? A little ketchup in
moderation won’t hike your added sugar percentage up by much, but that all
depends on how much you use. Ketchup is about 1/3 sugar, so a tablespoon comes
with a teaspoon worth of sugar.
What's Better
There are a few
low-sugar options out there, but they can be hard to find depending on where
you live. If you can find one of these, go for it. If not, and if you know you
tend to slather ketchup on your food in a big way, consider switching
condiments. Yellow mustard, for instance, has little or no added sugar.
Sports Drinks
What's in It
Sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade sell themselves as
thirst-quenchers that perform better than plain water. While it’s true that
they provide some of the salts your body sweats out during a workout, they also
include lots and lots of sugar. A standard 20-ounce bottle of lemon-lime
Gatorade has 7 teaspoons of sugar, making it one of the most sugary substances
on this list. If you work out to maintain a healthy weight, you’re undoing a
lot of the healthy benefits of exercise with all those unnecessary calories.
What's Better
Pure, simple, unadulterated water is better for your health than
sugar-saturated sports drinks. If you’re worried about missing out on the
highly-touted electrolytes sports drinks provide, you can do much better
without the added sugar by eating a banana or making a post-workout spinach
smoothie.
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Cocktails
What's in It
Anytime you drink alcohol, you’re drinking the byproduct of sugar.
Alcohol is made from fermented sugars. Some drinks still have sugar after the
fermentation process ends, and others have sugar added later. Some alcoholic
beverages are sweeter than others, though. Just a little over 2 ounces of TGI
Friday’s Mudslide Mix has a whopping 5.5 teaspoons of sugar! You can expect
similar levels in other sweet cocktail mixers.
What's Better
Standard domestic beer has little or no sugar. Most hard alcohol,
including tequila, brandy, and whiskey, don’t have any added sugar. Wine is a
little more complicated and varies from type to type. Even so, it’s hard to
find a wine that comes anywhere near the sugar content in a standard cocktail.
Of course the best option for your health is to cut alcohol out entirely—every
calorie from an alcoholic beverage is an empty calorie.
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Fruit Juice
What's in It
It depends on
the fruit juice. Very dry fruit juices like 100% cranberry juice have less than
half a gram of sugar in a cup. This type of juice is extremely tart, and many
will find it difficult to drink straight. On the other end of the spectrum, a
cup of pure apple juice contains 6 teaspoons of sugar. Orange and grape juices
are similarly sugar-sweet.
What's Better
If you love
fruit juice, enjoy it in moderation. When you drink a sugary fruit juice,
consider it a dessert, not a fruit supplement. If you’re trying to lose weight
and find yourself drinking lots of fruit juice, you may want to avoid it
entirely—the health benefits don’t outweigh all that extra sugar.
Dried Fruit
What's in It
Fruit gets its
sweet taste from sugar, and dried fruit is no exception. The big difference is
how much sugar dried fruit contains pound-for-pound. Drying the water out of
raisins, prunes, and other dried fruits also shrinks the total volume of the
fruit. You can eat it in a healthy way, but you need to eat a lot less dried
fruit to add up to one serving.
What's Better
Take grapes for
example. A serving size of fresh grapes is 1 cup. Their dried counterparts,
raisins, give you a serving from just 1.5 ounces. Dried fruit can quickly sneak
up on you and wreck your diet because it’s easier to overeat than fresh fruit.
You can enjoy either a cup of grapes or an ounce and a half of raisins and get
the same nutritional value. Which would you choose?
Bread
What's in It
Depending on
the type, bread can be a healthy part of your diet in moderation. Whole grain
varieties offer lots of health benefits, including fiber. But if your mission
is to avoid added sugars, watch out for bread. Even healthier breads often
contain a fair amount of sugar. The otherwise healthy Milton’s multi-grain, for
example, has a little over a teaspoon of sugar in every slice.
What's Better
There are a few
sugar-free breads available if you search for them. Rye bread tends to be lower
in sugar, as does pumpernickel. It varies widely by brand and type, though, so
you will need to use your detective skills by reading the nutritional facts
before you buy.
Canned Soup
What's in It
On the ingredient labels of many popular canned soups, you don’t
have to read far to find sugar. For example, the second ingredient of
Campbell’s tomato soup is high fructose corn syrup. That soup has 3 teaspoons
of sugar in every half-cup.
What's Better
While many soups do contain added sugar, many more do not. Chicken
noodle, cream of mushroom, and ramen-style soups often have no added sugar. You
should choose these types when avoiding sugar, but be careful—the sodium
content in some of these foods can harm your health as well. Of course you can
avoid both sodium and added sugar by making soup at home. If you’re strapped
for time, make some on the weekend and freeze what’s left over for later in the
week.
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Vitamins and Supplements
What's in It
Do you take
fiber supplements? How about chewable vitamin C tablets or gummy vitamins? Many
of them contain some form of sugar, be it corn syrup, grape juice concentrate,
or corn starch—which is not technically sugar, but breaks down into sugar as
you digest it. That’s especially true of children’s multivitamins, which are
made sweet to encourage kids to take them.
What's Better
Don’t assume
that all vitamins and supplements are entirely healthy. With a little
sleuthing, you will learn from the label whether or not your nutritional health
is being preserved by your choices. If you find more than you bargained for on
the label, don’t be afraid to switch brands or types; for instance, choosing
pills you swallow over those you chew up.
Smoothies
What's in It
The standard
smoothie has bananas and other fruits blended up with ice—no added sugar
required. However many smoothie-makers go beyond the basics, loading these
drinks with protein, vitamins, and often ice cream, frozen yogurt, honey, and
other sweets. That can include fruit juice, too, which can also turn your
smoothie into a sugar bomb.
What's Better
Without all the
added sweets, a smoothie can be a healthy choice. The trick once again is to
buy carefully. Whether the smoothie is bottled or made fresh, find out what’s
actually inside it. If you buy from the store, read the ingredient list
carefully. If your smoothie is freshly made, ask
enough questions to know whether you’re picking a healthy option.
Milk Alternatives
What's in It
Dairy aisles
have exploded with milk alternatives. Soybeans, cashews, rice, hemp, and even
peas have been turned into milk alternatives. Some of these have healthful
benefits, but beware: many also add sugar to your creamy beverage. That’s a
particular danger when choosing soy milk, pea milk, and rice milk.
What's Better
When your milk
alternative tastes sweet, there’s a reason. Very sweet milk alternatives often
have sugar, so check the label and do your research, especially if you’ve
chosen a flavored variety. You can still enjoy milk alternatives guilt-free,
but of course classic cow’s milk is a reasonable alternative that doesn’t come
with added sugar.
Reviewed by Charles Patrick Davis, MD,
PhD on Wednesday, January 24,
2018
Is Extra Sugar Hiding In
Your Food?
This tool does not
provide medical advice.
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