MFP breakdowns - carbs vs. sugars

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stryker520
stryker520 Posts: 12 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Can anyone explain to me how myfitnesspal defines carbs vs. sugars. Are the "sugars" the refined sugars? Does this include sugars from things like fruits? Generally sugars are a sub-category of carbs so this is why I am confused. As an example, if the nutrition breakdowns summary says 100 carbs and the sugars column says 20 sugars is the total number of carbs = to 120 carbs (100+20) or 80 carbs (100 carbs - 20 sugars).

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  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    Sugar is the total sugars all sources. So an apple will have sugars. I’m assuming the measures are in grams.

    In your example you have 100 grams of carbs, a subset which is 20 grams of sugars. Total 100 grams of carbs.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,872 Member
    edited June 2018
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    An even simpler, stupider answer: Since the database is crowd-sourced, the carbs and sugars are whatever were typed in by the internet stranger who created the database entry. If they go off what's on a food label, then what they enter is governed by whatever the national authority over labeling in their country says. If they go off the USDA database or something like that, it's based on those US labeling rules.

    Best expectation is that "sugars" is a combination of naturally-occurring and added sugars. (My nonfat milk has sugar in it. The cow added them. A candy bar has sugar in it. The manufacturer added most of them on top of some small amount in the whole-food ingredients, if any.)

    It's also most likely that the carbs are the actual carbs including the sugars, but some low-carb-ers create database entries in which they back out the fiber from the carbs before they enter it.

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