Sugar intake doesn't highlight added sugar versus sugar content in natural foods.
Answers
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If added sugar is mentioned on the nutritional labels where you are then you're the rare one out because it's generally not mentioned in most countries. This is a global website. And most of the database is entered by users, who might have this information available or not. or who might do odd things, like enter sugar in an apple to added sugar. You don't gain anything from that. Hey, many database entries on salt are totally messed up: some people log sodium as salt, some mix up mg and g, etc, simple due to how this information is provided on nutritional labels in various countries. If you're worried about sugar for health reasons then I suggest eating as little processed food as possible. Or look on the labels and decide based on that.
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If a food it truly natural, by definition it doesn't have any added sugar.
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If a person reads the World Health Organization recommendations about sugar - which I did - there are 3 things that they say are the big reasons to cut down on added sugar:
- Eating too much added sugar alongside getting adequate nutrition, a person will eat too many total calories, so gain weight.
- Eating too much added sugar within reasonable calories, a person won't get remotely close to ideal nutrition.
- Sugar causes dental cavities.
Y'know what? Eat too much sugar, even when it's not technically "added sugar", and those same things happen. Added sugar is pretty much the same chemicals as the inherent sugar that's in in nice, healthy whole foods. It's just that added sugar has been pulled out of other foods (beets, as one common example), leaving behind other useful nutrients, and the sugar has been concentrated. High calorie density, low nutrient density . . . not helpful.
Yes, some people are already diagnosed with a health condition that makes managing carbohydrates - including sugar - important to manage carefully. But otherwise - and even to some extent for them - it makes sense to try to get as close as practical to getting good overall nutrition within reasonable calories. Choose mostly whole foods that fit ample protein, healthy fats, a good complement of micronutrients, fiber, and beneficial phytochemicals into the right number of calories, and sugar will shrink into the background where it belongs.
Personally, I do better when I focus on getting the good nutrients into my way of eating, and staying with reasonable calories. Worrying about getting "bad foods" out of my eating doesn't help me get the nutrition I want within that calorie goal, so doesn't really help me reach my health goals. YMMV.
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Honey is natural, but is considered added sugar. Maple syrup is considered natural, but is also considered added sugar. Natural doesn't automatically mean good or no added ingredients. Whole foods generally will not have added sugar.
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Honey does not contain any added sugars. Here is a nutrition label from honey. Of course it has sugars in it, but no added sugars.
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Yeah neither honey or maple syrup are added sugars. She's saying they're often added to recipes, which sure, they are added natural sugars but it's not the same as refined sugars that are specifically manufactured to be added to the food supply.
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The FDA disagrees with you.
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I agree. I drizzled some added honey on my rabbit liver parfait that I added to my chicharron, therefore it's an added sugar, it's just not in a package but the FDA still considers it an added sweetener regardless so I'm good to go and following their invaluable knowledge.
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I use probably a couple tablespoons worth in my tea every day. Not saying people shouldn't eat it, but technically speaking, it's an added sugar.
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I'm going to revise my answer to not include maple syrup to that definition.
For all intents and purpose maple syrup is a refined product not found in nature and the maple sap, mostly water is filtered to remove debris then is boiled and concentrating the liquid until it resembles maple syrup which takes about 40 liters to make 1 liter. It's filtered again then graded on color and taste, which for all intense and purpose is similar to sugar production from beets and cane.
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Agreed.
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You're not reading my comment correctly. Natural honey contains no added sugars. If you add honey to another food as part of the processing, then yes it counts as an added sugar in that food.
https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-nutrition-facts-label
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The US got an added regulation that requires listing added sugar, because so many people and organizations railed about how terrible added sugar is, and how it's way too mean and unrealistic to expect regular non-science-y people to read ingredient lists when sugar has so many names in ingredient lists . . . or expect them to somehow recognize that maybe the total sugar listed on labels, or even the total carbohydrates listed on labels, might convey some helpful information when striving for a balanced diet.
Dumb regulations have silly consequences, like needing to decide whether honey is added sugar when honey is all that's in the jar or bottle, even though it becomes obvious that it's added sugar when it's, y'know, added to something else. Popular culture will cause things like that.
The same thing is happening here on MFP in microcosm, people railing about how very important it is to separately total up the added sugar. (BTW, added sugar does have a field in the food database, and it's in Create Food, but isn't very accurate because it isn't on labels everywhere, or everywhen even in the US). Probably eventually MFP will decide to make it more visible and total it up because of demand.
I still think the whole thing is silly. Sugar is sugar (yeah, different saccharide types with slightly different body effects, blah blah blah) - whether added sugar or inherent sugar. Reducing added sugar doesn't by itself improve health or nutrition or body weight. Getting better overall nutrition at reasonable calories improves health, nutrition and bodyweight. As an individual human, why not focus there, instead of on the evil added sugar?
What's next in the regulatory world for food labels: Demand to break added sugars down by mono-, oligo-, poly- and dissaccharides, or list fructose separately because it's extra evil, or . . . ?
Jeez.
I eat sugar. I don't eat lots of sugar, because if I do I can't get adequate nutrition within reasonable calories. (Duh.) I don't even track sugar in my diary. I found out I was going over the MFP default sugar goal pretty much every day, almost entirely from fruits, veggies, and no-sugar-added dairy foods, and - not having a relevant health condition - I don't think that's a problem, since through those same food choices I'm getting plenty of protein, healthy fats, micronutrients, beneficial phytochemicals, fiber, probiotics and more good stuff, all within sensible calories. Perfect? I'm sure not. But it's good enough.
Basic smart idea, IMO: Don't eat so much sugar that we don't get good nutrition within reasonable calories, or go over reasonable calories in order to get adequate nutrition. I'm talking total sugar.
Same concept applies to any ingredient, nutrient, superfood, treat food, anything, even the seemingly god-like protein: Don't eat so much of it that it prevents getting adequate overall nutrition within sensible calories. To me, that seems pretty simple. Focus on getting the right nutrients into the right number of calories. Don't focus on "exorcise the evil sugar". A person can eliminate allllllll sugar, and still not have a healthy overall diet.
Just my minority opinion, still, of course.
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And on the note of honey: most 'honey' is not natural honey but made from beet, rice or wheat syrups. Within the EU the number is estimated to be higher than 40%. This is mostly impor% is ted honey. In the US, over 70% of honey is imported. So who knows… unless you buy from a local beekeeper you have no idea what you're getting.
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Will disagree with a point in here. Reducing added sugar IMO will improve health/nutrition assuming no other changes. Added sugars provide no nutritional value, except added calories, which we all know the vast majority of the population doesn't need. Foods with naturally occurring sugars as you mention have other components that are needed for health/good nutrition.
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Exactly. According to the CDC the average American consumes about 1 lb a week of added sugars.
Of course if someone consumes mostly a whole food diet and does most of their own cooking and use refined sugar once in a while or eat few pastries now or then, it's effect is minimal and don't really think much of the consequences or doesn't know, they're just living a live where most junk and processed foods are basically a non factor, wish I was one of those, but unfortunately sugar is my kryptonite, not any more though and I plan to keep it that way.
Unfortunately most Americans, around 70% of that population consumes a diet high in ultra processed and processed food, including that pound of sugars with about the same coincidently 70% that are overweight and obese and half of those have insulin resistance, prediabetes and diabetes, also there's a significant number of Americans that have never actually been tested as well.
Added sugar is played down by the USDA simply because the nutritional guidelines in 1992 said to consume 6 to 11 servings of grains a day which they believed was the foundation of a healthy diet. Because of possible nutritional deficiencies if consuming only whole grain they also said to consume 1/2 of those servings of grains in refined grains like bread and cereal. As it is the RDA is still short about 2or 3% of the population based on the guidelines which basically leaves about 6 to 9 million people inadequately protected from nutritional deficiencies and that doesn't take into consideration that again almost 70% of the population consumes mostly the SAD diet and not the recommended diet, and a good reason why deficiencies exist in many western countries.
Anyway if we take added sugar alone and consider people are consuming 1 lb a week, this has some pretty serious consequences and if we just look at ground zero for our health, it would be our gut, our microbiome, with sugar and also highly processed foods with many other metabolites in those foods that go along with the growing and cultivating those foods for consumption which result in very problematic and extremely deleterious environment for a functional biome with these effects contributing to issues like digestive disorders, immune dysfunction, and metabolic diseases, most actually.
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The WHO among others, based on research, believes reducing added (free) sugars is important for health.
https://www.who.int/news/item/04-03-2015-who-calls-on-countries-to-reduce-sugars-intake-among-adults-and-children
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Apparently, I'm expressing myself unclearly, because two replies now seem to imply that I think it's fine to eat infinite amounts of added sugar, ignoring all health authorities.
That is not true. Eating too much sugar is bad, and added sugar is probably the easiest way to eat too much sugar. Specifically, I think it's almost always bad to eat lots of added sugar. (Long endurance athletes may be an exception.)
I've read the WHO's recommendations on sugar in detail. I even mention WHO and summarize their reasoning in a PP on this very thread. Quoting myself:
Eating too much added sugar alongside getting adequate nutrition, a person will eat too many total calories, so gain weight.
Eating too much added sugar within reasonable calories, a person won't get remotely close to ideal nutrition.
Sugar causes dental cavities.
The article you link cites the first and third of those reasons as key.
What I'm trying to say is that as an individual - for me, at least - focusing on reducing added sugar misses the point, the real goal, which is healthy body weight, good nutrition, and dental health specifically.
If a person focuses on getting good overall nutrition at reasonable calories, added sugar - and maybe total sugar - is likely to shrink. Sure, just getting rid of the added sugar may reduce total calories enough to lead to weight loss. (But if calorie consumption stays high from consuming other foods, weight loss isn't going to happen.)
Sure, if there is weight loss from reducing added sugar, there will likely be health improvement - meaningful health improvement - just from that weight loss. That's a good thing. But if the rest of the diet is still sub-par in any of protein, healthy fats, micronutrients, fiber, etc., then health improvement won't be as significant as would accrue from weight loss plus good overall nutrition.
We have limited time, attention, intellect and all that kind of thing. I'd encourage people to focus it on the goal of getting good overall nutrition (from food, not supplements, ideally) at reasonable calories. If that's achieved, it will almost certainly result - as a side effect - in getting less added sugar, fewer refined and highly processed foods, and that sort of thing.
Focusing on added sugar can lead to side trips, a distraction from the big goals. The artificially-sweetened donut isn't materially more health-promoting than the sugar-sweetened donut, though it may be more helpful to a weight loss goal (and possibly has other advantages for someone with a relevant health condition). With or without added sugar, high calorie food tends to be fattening, and nutrient-sparse food tends to be sub-ideal for health. Weight loss by itself is great, generally health-promoting compared to being overweight, but it's not the whole story.
Fussing about MFP not totaling added sugar can even be a convenient excuse. I can't speak for or about OP, but IRL before the current labeling regs I've heard people use products not listing added sugar as an excuse for weight management or health failures. Personally, I've never found it difficult - at least since the NLEA went into effect in the 1990s - to figure out which products were high in sugar and low in nutrients. I might've missed some small weirdly-named sugar item, but honestly I don't care: Reducing sugar intake to a sensible level doesn't require wringing out ever last gram of the "evil" added sugar.
At the societal level, focusing specifically on reducing added sugar makes more sense, as a target for things like regulation and labeling to raise public awareness of how much added sugar is in commercial food products, and create market pressure to reduce the prevalence. It isn't the be-all end-all of improving public health, but it's a piece that it's useful for governments and nonprofits to call out.
I'm still going to say that for an individual, rather than investing time and energy totaling up added sugar and focusing on reducing that, there's a bigger return on that time and energy if an individual focuses on achieving reasonable calories and good overall nutrition.
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What's next in the regulatory world for food labels: Demand to break added sugars down by mono-, oligo-, poly- and dissaccharides, or list fructose separately because it's extra evil, or . . . ?
LOL, apparently:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48066975/#Comment_48066975
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Yeah, I saw that, mere minutes after I posted the rant above. In fairness, it seems possible that fructose is more of a concern than sucrose, glucose, lactose, etc., for someone who has NAFLD, NASH, or is high risk for conditions like that. Too much of any sugars are likely a bad thing for health conditions like those, too.
The opinion I'm advancing in this thread is how I'd think of it for a generally healthy person. Specific health conditions may differ.
I'd observe that there are many health conditions or medication regimens for which other nutrients loom large as concerns, like vitamin K in context of some blood thinners, phosphorus for people with CKD, and more. I'm not shooting for "what about-ism" in saying that, but there are a variety of health conditions that unfortunately require more nuanced information about food than our current US labeling regulations support well. Those needs are more acute IMO than the need for the average person to have added sugar broken out from total sugar, and IMU the response of diabetics or insulin resistant people to sugar depends on context beyond simply knowing how much is added sugar vs. inherent so I'm not sure whether that distinction is key for them, either.
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I completely agree with you Ann. I haven't delved into it as much as you have, and I admit I come from a place of educated privilege but I don't actually need a label or MFP to warn me that a product I'm consuming has high levels of sugar, added or not, and to avoid products that do. I eat very largely whole foods (and I'm not a fruit eater, so that brings things down) but I tend to just avoid products which have added sugar, unless I'm eating because they have added sugar (by this I mean, you bet your butt that if I'm having ice cream, it's going to be the real thing).
I think the labelling of added sugar and its foibles actually adds more confusion (the above discussion of how a jar of honey has no added sugar, but add that honey to oats, and now it's added sugar is a big one) and really gives the government and the various facets of the health industry a way to say "look, we're making things more transparent!" when really, just actually educating people on what sugar is, the different things it's called, and the simple logic of what does and doesn't already have natural sugar levels is the far more useful goal.
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Personally, I don't feel like government or other large organizations knowingly posture in that kind of way, at least not in relatively open societies. It would take a large scale conspiracy about revealing motives, and people are pretty bad at sustaining conspiracies: The more people involved, the more probable the conspiracy breaks down . . . or in this case, the façade breaks down. I think it's more likely to have been a response to public pressure. After a while, demands can wear down even a bureaucracy.
As far as "actually educating people on what sugar is, the different things it's called, and the simple logic of what does and doesn't already have natural sugar levels" . . . I wish. But, cynically, I feel like the predominant mass of the general public is more learning-resistant than that. I'm not saying "stupid", because it's not that, or not mostly . . . but more like too busy, too uninterested, focused on other things, and thus vulnerable to clickbait, simplistic statements, overstatements, black and white thinking, propaganda by entities with vested interests, and that sort of thing. Modern life is hard and complicated. Every important realm has nuance that many people could benefit greatly from knowing more about, but the public doesn't have the interest or available attention bandwidth to master. There are too many topic areas to master, besides.
If I had a dollar for every time someone I went to school with said/typed "they should have taught us X in school!!!" when I know bleepin' well that they DID teach us X in school, I'd be piling up wealth. And yes, the 3 exclamation points are usually part of the way they put that idea.
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Oh, definitely not implying any kind of a conspiracy, I've worked in government haha. Every time I see someone posture a government cover up, I remember the clusterfeck of trying to organise something as straightforward as a fundraiser morning tea. I mean more like it's lip service, or as you say a bowing to public pressure and the need to appear to be seen to be doing something.
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You’re not reading HER comment correctly, because that’s what she said, that honey IS an added sugar when added to other foods even though it’s natural.
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When we add a food to another food the first food is an added food, good to know. 🤔Honey is recognized as an added sugar, although it can be consumed alone, it's for nutritional labeling.
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Sure I agree with focusing on the elements of good health. However, reducing added sugars are one of the lowest hanging fruits (no pun intended) on the path to good health for most people and should be addressed.
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But if I just stick a spoon in the honey jar and eat it plain, I'm not adding it to anything, so it's not an added sugar? Just another instance of nutrition advice making no sense.
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I just wish the input fields included space for added sugars for when labels include added sugars. Can see different people utilizing for personal reasons.
Re non-sensical reasoning, could say same for other ingredients - for ex real butter spread onto bread or added with other ingredients in a baked item recipe. I am not sure how it matters?
Some breakouts, like the fats matter in ways I don't understand, but was personally given specific targets for saturated fats, trans fats, sodium, cholesterol and added sugars. Appreciate the fields are available, except the added sugar field which I end up having to track manually for my reporting.
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The food database does have a field for added sugars. I think it can only be entered in the phone/tablet app, not the web browser version of MFP. I don't think it's totaled up or reported anywhere, though, so it won't do what you'd like it to do. It does, however, imply that MFP has some idea of doing something with it someday, maybe.
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That would be good @AnnPT77 - I am using free web versions, not the app - so have not seen an 'added sugar' field yet.
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