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Added Sugar vs Natural Sugar

MaggieS1979
MaggieS1979 Posts: 5 Member
in Feature Suggestions and Ideas
Please add the ability to track and easily see added sugar vs natural sugar. As everyone knows added sugar is the real enemy and not having an easy way to see how much added sugar vs natural sugar I consume is frustrating. I use an app to make tracking easy. I pay for an app to make them even easier. But the lack of this features has me using my notes app to track the added sugar I consume each meal to ensure I am keeping that number low.
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Replies

  • Jean
    Jean Posts: 923 MFP Staff
    Thank you so much for your suggestion on this. I just passed this along to our team to think more about!
  • ClaudiaCA101
    ClaudiaCA101 Posts: 1 Member
    I came to this place to look for help on where or how to check my added sugar, as opposite of the sugar from raw fruit. And thanks to this post, now I know that it doesn’t exist. I totally agree with Maggie, we must count added sugar to keep it under 20grs per day.
  • KareninCanada
    KareninCanada Posts: 962 Member
    It's there as a field when you add a food, but in order to use that you have to actually know the data. I haven’t seen many food labels actually break that down.
  • mspoone
    mspoone Posts: 1 Member
    edited December 2024
    I would also like to add to my request for there to be separation on the tracking between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars.
    Most food labels in the US do include both numbers:
    Total Sugar:
    Added Sugar:
    It would add a very valuable tracking component to the metrics provided.
  • sarahalynn
    sarahalynn Posts: 5 Member
    Same with fats vs healthy fats. They should show seperately in some way!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,227 Member
    sarahalynn wrote: »
    Same with fats vs healthy fats. They should show seperately in some way!

    I don't understand?

    MFP tracks each of total fat, saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol. We can customize any of our diary columns to include those if they're important to us. Also, we can use the Nutrition section in the phone/tablet version of MFP to see those totals for the day or averages for a week. In the web version of MFP, we can look at a total for each category in the Reports section.

    Sincere questions, since it isn't clear: In what other ways do you want to be able to look at the fats?
  • christinaannebeckwith
    christinaannebeckwith Posts: 1 Member
    Agree. I used dates and banana to sweeten my pancakes... no added sugars at all, but MFP shows that I have consumed most of my allowed sugar for the day. It is hard on my numbers based mind to eat well all day, stay on budget for every number and then sugar is like, "FAIL!"
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,645 Member
    edited February 6
    christinaannebeckwith wrote: »
    Agree. I used dates and banana to sweeten my pancakes... no added sugars at all, but MFP shows that I have consumed most of my allowed sugar for the day. It is hard on my numbers based mind to eat well all day, stay on budget for every number and then sugar is like, "FAIL!"

    The big issue with "added sugar" on labels is that, if you were to buy those pancakes already made, and they had a label, the sugar from the banana and dates would show up in the "added sugar" part of the label and get counted in the added sugar total anyway.

    A jar of honey? Label says 0 added sugar. A jar of peanut butter with honey added to sweeten? Honey = added sugar on the label.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,227 Member
    Alatariel75 wrote: »
    christinaannebeckwith wrote: »
    Agree. I used dates and banana to sweeten my pancakes... no added sugars at all, but MFP shows that I have consumed most of my allowed sugar for the day. It is hard on my numbers based mind to eat well all day, stay on budget for every number and then sugar is like, "FAIL!"

    The big issue with "added sugar" on labels is that, if you were to buy those pancakes already made, and they had a label, the sugar from the banana and dates would show up in the "added sugar" part of the label and get counted in the added sugar total anyway.

    A jar of honey? Label says 0 added sugar. A jar of peanut butter with honey added to sweeten? Honey = added sugar on the label. '

    I don't think that's true with the labeling laws in the US, if it's whole dates and whole bananas. If it's concentrates or refined/processed banana or date ingredients, it might.

    I agree that it doesn't matter, because biochemically sugar is sugar, no matter the source: Dextrose, sucrose, fructose. It's going to be a problem if we eat enough of any of those that it drives out other necessary nutrition or puts us over reasonable calories (or causes dental cavities, or aggravates a health condition). The problem with added sugars is that they can give us a hard push in those negative directions, and eating sugar without fiber/protein is going to be more likely to put blood sugar levels on a roller coaster.

    The FDA info for consumers says
    Added sugars include sugars that are added during the processing of foods (such as sucrose or dextrose), foods packaged as sweeteners (such as table sugar), sugars from syrups and honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices. They do not include naturally occurring sugars that are found in milk, fruits, and vegetables.

    Source: https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-nutrition-facts-label

    For example, in my hand right now I have a package of dark chocolate coated figs. The figs aren't whole, they're ground up, kind of like what you might see in a fig bar - processed, IOW, but just figs. The chocolate coating isn't super sweet, but the ingredient list says the chocolate has some sugar.

    The nutrition label - per 3 piece serving - says 11g total sugar, 1g added sugar. Ten of those 11 grams are certainly the figs, not being counted as added sugar.

    aw9u9jfluikg.jpg

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,227 Member
    christinaannebeckwith wrote: »
    Agree. I used dates acnd banana to sweeten my pancakes... no added sugars at all, but MFP shows that I have consumed most of my allowed sugar for the day. It is hard on my numbers based mind to eat well all day, stay on budget for every number and then sugar is like, "FAIL!"

    FWIW, if I get in what I consider good overall nutrition but still get cautions from MFP messaging, I figure I'm winning, not naughty. :D After all, it gives me the same kind of message if I go a gram over my protein goal. :D

    While losing weight - as well as now in year 9 of successful maintenance - I was over the MFP default sugar goal every day.

    While losing, most days the only added sugar was a tiny bit of apple juice concentrate well down the ingredient list in a single daily 30-calories tablespoon of all-fruit spread. The rest was inherent sugar in no-sugar-added dairy foods, whole fruits, and veggies. Upon realizing that, I used the diary customization features in MFP to take out the sugar column and replace it with one that had more meaning to me.

    In maintenance, I've spot-checked, and my routine day are well within the WHO and similar organizations' recommendations of no more than 10% of calories from added sugars, and my protein, healthy fats, and veggie/fruit intake is good. I'm not going to let a one-size-fits-all app intimidate me into revising what I consider a healthy, happy eating routine just to eliminate its messages.

    While I wouldn't suggest everyone do what I do, or think what I think, I'd encourage everyone to think of MFP's messages as more like potentially-helpful reminders than as "FAIL". If the reminder has a point, maybe change routine habits. If it doesn't, maybe ignore it?

    I do understand and support that many people would find it helpful to have an added-sugar total available in MFP as a potential diary column and on reports, and would encourage MFP to make that change.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,645 Member
    edited February 6
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Alatariel75 wrote: »
    christinaannebeckwith wrote: »
    Agree. I used dates and banana to sweeten my pancakes... no added sugars at all, but MFP shows that I have consumed most of my allowed sugar for the day. It is hard on my numbers based mind to eat well all day, stay on budget for every number and then sugar is like, "FAIL!"

    The big issue with "added sugar" on labels is that, if you were to buy those pancakes already made, and they had a label, the sugar from the banana and dates would show up in the "added sugar" part of the label and get counted in the added sugar total anyway.

    A jar of honey? Label says 0 added sugar. A jar of peanut butter with honey added to sweeten? Honey = added sugar on the label. '

    I don't think that's true with the labeling laws in the US, if it's whole dates and whole bananas. If it's concentrates or refined/processed banana or date ingredients, it might.

    I agree that it doesn't matter, because biochemically sugar is sugar, no matter the source: Dextrose, sucrose, fructose. It's going to be a problem if we eat enough of any of those that it drives out other necessary nutrition or puts us over reasonable calories (or causes dental cavities, or aggravates a health condition). The problem with added sugars is that they can give us a hard push in those negative directions, and eating sugar without fiber/protein is going to be more likely to put blood sugar levels on a roller coaster.

    The FDA info for consumers says
    Added sugars include sugars that are added during the processing of foods (such as sucrose or dextrose), foods packaged as sweeteners (such as table sugar), sugars from syrups and honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices. They do not include naturally occurring sugars that are found in milk, fruits, and vegetables.

    Source: https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-nutrition-facts-label

    For example, in my hand right now I have a package of dark chocolate coated figs. The figs aren't whole, they're ground up, kind of like what you might see in a fig bar - processed, IOW, but just figs. The chocolate coating isn't super sweet, but the ingredient list says the chocolate has some sugar.

    The nutrition label - per 3 piece serving - says 11g total sugar, 1g added sugar. Ten of those 11 grams are certainly the figs, not being counted as added sugar.

    aw9u9jfluikg.jpg

    Interesting, I wonder if it's been tweaked, the article I read which delved into it was a few years back when it all first started being added to labels. Back then, your figs wouldn't have "added sugar" from the figs because they're the main ingredient, but figs added to say, an oatmeal sachet would. It doesn't appear that's the case now.


    I admit that for me personally, I don't find 'added sugar' helpful on labels. I know if there's sugar added to the food I'm eating due to what kind of food it is, and as I tend to prioritise whole foods, my added sugar is pretty minimal. It's hard for me to really imagine that someone could be eating a ton of added sugar and not know? But I guess it's an education piece.

    Also the differentiation between "natural" and added sugar is a bit of a furfy - though I don't think that's what the labels say, right? But as with the honey example, 'natural' sugar is and can be 'added' sugar when it's added to another product.

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