Added Sugar
Any sugars ADDED during the processing of foods such as white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, maple syrup, or honey.
Get this: Added sugar is hiding in 74% of packaged foods that many of us consider healthy.
The American Heart Association recommends the max Added Sugars to eat per day is 25 grams for women, and men get a little more (37.5g).
Below is what eating 25g of Added Sugar per day, actually. looks. like.
Breakfast: plain yogurt + fresh fruit + chopped walnuts + 1 tsp honey (5g)
Good to know: Plain yogurt has 0g added sugar per serving, but vanilla has 9g!
Lunch: salmon + kale salad + no-sugar dressing + 2T dried cranberries (7g)
Good to know: Fresh chopped apples or grapes in salad naturally have zero added sugar and some dried fruit has no added sugar.
Dinner: 1T bbq sauce (5g) + chicken + sweet potato fries + tahini + veggies
Good to know: Ketchup has 4g of added sugar per tablespoon, but fries dipped into tahini taste delish for 0g sugar!
Treat: 1 oz dark chocolate (8g)
Good to know: The higher the percent cocoa in chocolate the less sugar it will have!
How To: Find Added Sugar
Look at the food label….
1. Read ingredients first! 👀
If you see sugar (or synonyms of sugar) in the ingredient list – that’s added sugar!
2. Then look at grams of sugar.
You actually can’t just look at “grams of sugar” because that number counts natural + added sugar. The good news is the FDA recently updated the nutrition label so companies are starting to include “added sugar” on the label. This change will make it super simple to count up our daily added sugar grams. 🙏
>WOW Challenge: Count up how much added sugar is in your diet today. If you’re at 25g or less, great news! If you’re over 25g, start swapping to lower sugar options. xx
Click HERE for full infographic image.
Mohamed Bunduka says
I like this. Very educative.
DJ Blatner, RDN says
Thanks for visiting my website! Glad you found it helpful! xx