In this post, the comments were saying that natural sugar (i.e. not added sugar) doesn’t count towards your daily allowance, and you should reduce added sugar as much as possible.
For example, in one cereal bar it’s advertised as “no added sugar”, but the pack contains 18.2g of carbohydrates, of which 16.2g is sugar.
Does the sugar in the cereal bar go with “added sugar” (e.g. in chocolate bars) or “natural sugar” (e.g. in fruits)?
It’s not that natural sugars don’t ‘count’ as your total daily sugar intake, sugar is still sugar. It’s just that added sugars are being consumed without benefits of fiber, micronutrients and lower density foods.
Sugar in of itself isn’t this horrible thing everyone should avoid. Consuming too much sugar can lead to excess calories, insufficient fiber and micronutrient intake and lack of feeling ‘full’. When someone takes in too many added sugars, the likelihood of those things increase quite a bit. If someone can focus on getting less than 10% of their total cals from added sugars and get 10-15g of fiber per 1000cals then by default they’ll likely get most of their micros, and have less of a chance of over eating
When the label says ‘added sugars’, just try your best to avoid those. Have them make up no less than 10% of your cals. So if you’re consuming 2000cals, then no more than 200cals (50g of sugar) should be your goal
Companies can use really tricky tactics to avoid getting around calculating sugar on nutrition labels
There’s only certain types of sugars they have to include in the tally
r/sugarfree has a lot of good information on this
Read the ingredients label. If there’s no sugary substance listed then you can chock it up to it being natural sugars (like in yogurt, milk, canned tomatoes, there are natural sugars that are unavoidable). But the fact that it’s 18g really makes me suspicious.
Here’s a high level breakdown of a lot of the most common sugar types: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/56-different-names-for-sugar
Some foods contain sugar on their own naturally. At times companies will add additional sugar to it. Milk has sugar in it naturally, but companies will add a few things, including sugar, to make chocolate milk.
“No added sugar” simply means that “sugar” itself was not used as an ingredient. Carbohydrate inherent to the product can metabolize into glucose but is not deemed “added” because it occurs naturally in the food.
Added sugar is sugar added to a final product that doesn’t already naturally exist in that food.
And just FYI, there should be no such thing as a daily allowance for added sugar… because ideally it shouldn’t be there at all.
if its a raw product like fruits or simple oats then its natural sugar
natural sugar is fine because you are unlikely to eat too much of it ( tho people with diabetes have to limit the intake even if its from clean carbs) AND it comes from relatively healthy sources ie ur fruit will come packed with fiber that help ur insulin levels and also vitamins and minerals.
be careful with honey or maple syrup tho its a lot of sugar
for packaged items look at the ingredients where it says things like flour, oil, powders, flavors etc. If it says sugar then it’s the added kind. Not on the other label with carbs/protein/fats/sugars. You will notice ie that some cereal boxes have added sugars and others dont. Same for ie fruit yogurts ( yeah their fruit has natural sugar but for whatever reason they put added sugar in too as an extra sweetener). Ive seen added sugar even in cold cuts.
also carbs are made of starches which ur body turns into glucose ( a sugar) and when u look at labels ( where it says ie for 100g of Oats it’s 27g carbs out of which 1g sugar) that 1g is sucrose which is the bad kind of sugar ( its glucose binded with fructose and fructose sucks). Half the carbs in ie a banana is fructose but u are unlikely to eat so much that it becomes an issue and they dont have the adverse impact ie white bread has. We need glucose for energy and we can be fine eating lots of carbs ( look at history lots of cultures developed on rice, corn, flour, potatoes and these are still staple foods) but not lots of sugar.
also look into the topic of processed carbs https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/why-refined-carbs-are-bad