Beware of Hidden Sugar in Foods

Hidden sugar. Beware!

You may have come across a study out of UCSF about sugar — decreasing added sugar in kids’ diets for just 10 days caused significant decreases in bad cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure. You might be thinking that eliminating added sugar from your diet or your families is just too tall an order, so why bother? Any of that sound familiar?

This isn’t an “all or nothing” game — a decrease in sugar is progress. Here are a few tips from us to help you get started.

1. Know the aliases sugar goes by.
Glucose, sucrose, galactose, fructose, barley malt, rice syrup, maltose, muscovado, dextrose, malt syrup… Have you seen these on labels? Yep, they’re sugar. Here are some names of hidden sugar in foods.

2. Skip the sugar where it’s unnecessary.
While we could argue that all added sugar is unnecessary, what we’re talking about here are products that contain sugar but don’t need it. There are many “no-added sugar” products that taste even better. Products like salad dressing, sandwich meat, and applesauce are good examples of foods that don’t need additional sugar to taste great.

3. Watch out for sauces.
Many pasta, barbecue, and other pre-prepared sauces are packed with added sugar. Check labels and see what you find. Choose no-sugar-added sauces or you can make your own!

4. Check the label of “low-fat” and “fat-free” products.
Low-fat cheese, yogurt, and salad dressings are all over the grocery store shelves. In many cases, the manufacturers have added sugar to replace the fat and keep the product tasting good. So make sure you know what you’re buying. Don’t assume that something low-fat or fat-free is healthy.

The average American eats about 22 teaspoons of added sugar per day — that’s almost half a cup! Here are our tricks for cutting sugar cravings and decreasing your sugar intake.

Sources: UCSF, Harvard School of Public Health, American Diabetes Association