Track Added Sugars?

psycherie
psycherie Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Is there any way to track added sugars rather than total sugars in a day? I’m at my limit with sugar by noon after my fruits.

Replies

  • zeejane03
    zeejane03 Posts: 993 Member
    It's all factored in within the carb macros. There's no way to track added sugar here on MFP though. Up til recently labels didn't separate added vs natural occurring sugars (new labeling requirements are starting to be implemented in the U.S. but it will take a while before everything has switched over to the new labels).

    Unless you have a medical condition that requires you to monitor your intake of sugar though it's not a big deal, many have chosen to switch out the sugar tracking option for something else, like fiber.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,887 Member
    edited February 2019
    No, because currently packaging labels in the US and most entries don't break that out.

    I just look at fiber and sugar and note where my sugar is from. If it's from fruit and veg (which it is unless I had a dessert item), then I don't care. If you eat lots of packaged stuff and are worried you might be eating more sugar than you realize look at the packages when logging and pay attention, and also remember that for something like jarred tomato sauce (if you get that) or yogurt the sugar is at least partially inherent (100% inherent for plain yogurt).

    Lots of people find it easier to look at whether they are hitting their calories and also protein and fat macros and their fiber and if so -- if the fiber is from whole foods, anyway, and not supplements -- it's unlikely you are getting too many calories from added sugar. I find it easier just to look at what I'm actually eating, though.
  • smithgj11
    smithgj11 Posts: 1 Member
    When will they track added sugar? No why, if not check something else. When?y doctor needs me to track added sugar. I can't be the only one
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,567 Community Helper
    smithgj11 wrote: »
    When will they track added sugar? No why, if not check something else. When?y doctor needs me to track added sugar. I can't be the only one

    They will probably track it when the food database has accumulated enough data that contains it. There's a huge database here, and most of it predates the labeling requirements for added sugar. Since the database is crowd-sourced (entered by regular MFP users like you), it only contains what was on labels at the time the food was entered. Right now, that's a tiny, tiny fraction of the foods - though people can enter it now. If MFP gave you a total for it now, it would be overwhelmingly likely to greatly understate how much added sugar you're getting. That's definitely not what you want.

    I don't have a clear solution for you, in MFP, if you need to track added sugar exactly to the gram. By taste rather than dietary intention or need, I eat relatively little added sugar, and ate nearly none while losing weight. With that kind of eating style, it was easy for me to know how much added sugar I ate by looking at labels. There was only one thing I ate regularly that had added sugar (some concentrated fruit juice in a fruit spread I ate daily), so it was easy to know that the answer was "5 grams today". If I ate the rare other thing with added sugar, that would've been easy to add in my food notes on MFP or something.

    If you eat lots of prepared/processed foods with added sugar, that wouldn't be very viable as a solution, though. If you're trying to strictly limit added sugar, it might work.

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