Yogurt – The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Picture grabbing what you think is a healthy breakfast option, only to discover you’ve consumed more sugar than a chocolate bar. A single cup (245 grams) of low fat flavored yogurt can contain 20-30 grams of sugar, which is about 11 teaspoons. That shocking amount exceeds the daily sugar recommendation for both men and women combined in just one supposedly healthy serving.
The culprit here isn’t the yogurt itself – it’s the flavored varieties that pack a sugary punch. You may be shocked at the amount of sugar you are eating when you check those nutrition labels. One leading brand of yogurt contains 7 teaspoons (29 grams) of sugar per serving, which rivals many candy bars in sweetness.
Granola and Granola Bars – Nature’s Candy Bars
That crunchy, wholesome-looking granola might be fooling you into thinking it’s a health food. Check the nutrition label and you may see as many as 200-plus calories in a tiny ⅓-cup serving – along with lots of added sugars and saturated fat. Some granola products contain so much sugar they basically qualify as breakfast dessert.
In the products we looked at, the sugars content ranged from 1 to 14 grams per serving. The worst part? Those serving sizes are tiny, meaning most people pour way more than the recommended amount. The added sugars in granola can be astonishing, with some varieties containing more sugar per ounce than ice cream.
Breakfast Cereals – Sugar-Coated Morning Disasters
That colorful box of cereal might be marketed as part of a balanced breakfast, but it’s often more dessert than nutrition. A single cup of bran cereal with raisins, in a box advertising “no high-fructose corn syrup,” contains 20 grams of sugar per serving. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly five teaspoons of sugar before you even add milk.
Even cereals that sound healthy can be sugar bombs. Some breakfast cereals can contain around 12 grams (or three teaspoons) of sugar in a small 34-gram (1.2-ounce) serving. Many popular cereals actually contain more sugar than cookies or donuts when you compare serving sizes. Cereals that say “frosted,” “honey,” “granola clusters,” “coated clusters” or “marshmallows” on the packaging. “Those are all going to contain a lot of sugar”.
Ketchup – America’s Sweetest Condiment
Most people think of ketchup as a vegetable-based condiment, but it’s basically liquid sugar with some tomato flavoring. A single tablespoon of regular ketchup contains approximately 4 grams of sugar. This measurement represents nearly one full teaspoon of pure sugar concentrated into that small serving size. Think about how much ketchup you actually use – it adds up fast.
The comparison gets even more shocking when you realize that “Most people add about 3 tablespoons of ketchup to their burgers,” Naidoo notes. “That 12 grams of sugar from the ketchup alone is more sugar than you’d find in a serving of two store-bought chocolate chip cookies.” Your favorite ketchup contains more sugar per tablespoon than many ice cream brands.
Pasta Sauce – The Hidden Sugar Bomb in Your Pantry
You’d never expect savory tomato sauce to be a sugar culprit, but food manufacturers have other plans. Added sugars are often hidden in foods that we don’t even consider to be sweet, such as spaghetti sauce. However, many spaghetti sauces contain added sugar as well. This isn’t just a trace amount either.
While most pasta sauces are savory rather than sweet, they can have around six to 12 grams of sugar per a half-cup serving, which equates to around the same amount of sugar in a chocolate chip cookie. That “simple” spaghetti dinner might be delivering more sugar than you bargained for, especially since most people use more than half a cup of sauce per serving.
Sports Drinks – The Athletic Sugar Water
Sports drinks can often be mistaken as a healthy choice for those who exercise. However, sports drinks are designed to hydrate and fuel trained athletes during prolonged, intense periods of exercise. For the average person hitting the gym for an hour, these drinks are complete overkill in the sugar department.
For this reason, they contain high amounts of added sugars that can be quickly absorbed and used for energy. Unless you’re running a marathon or doing intense athletic training for hours, you’re basically drinking flavored sugar water. Many sports drinks contain roughly the same amount of sugar as soda, yet people guzzle them thinking they’re making a healthy choice.
Barbecue Sauce – Sweet and Smoky Sugar Overload
Barbecue sauce brings flavor to grilled foods, but it also brings an astronomical amount of sugar. However, 2 tablespoons (around 28 grams) of sauce can contain around 9 grams of sugar. This is over 2 teaspoons worth. Most people use way more than two tablespoons when slathering this stuff on their food.
Two tablespoons of barbecue sauce are reported to contain around nine grams of sugar and around 33 percent of the weight of the sauce may be sugar. That means roughly one-third of your barbecue sauce is pure sugar. It’s basically candy sauce disguised as a condiment, and people pour it on everything without a second thought.
Flavored Milk – Liquid Candy Masquerading as Nutrition
Chocolate milk seems like a reasonable treat, especially when it’s marketed as having the same nutritional benefits as regular milk. But the sugar content tells a different story. While plain milk is a good source of calcium and protein, flavored versions, such as chocolate milk, have a high sugar content. An 8-ounce glass of chocolate milk contains 11.4 grams (2.9 teaspoons) of added sugar.
This puts chocolate milk in the same sugar category as many sodas and desserts. The protein and calcium don’t magically cancel out all that added sugar, yet parents often think they’re giving their kids a healthy drink. Strawberry and vanilla flavored milks pack similar sugar loads, making them more like milkshakes than nutritious beverages.
Salad Dressings – Destroying Healthy Meals Drop by Drop
You’re trying to eat healthy with a nice salad, but then you drown it in sugar-laden dressing. In other condiments, salad dressing is another source of high sugars. French and Catalina dressings are known to have the most sugar, with around five to seven grams per two tablespoons of dressing. That’s more sugar than many desserts contain.
This is a much higher sugar content than the roughly one gram of sugar you’d have in the same portion of a homemade vinegar and oil dressing. The irony is that you’re trying to be healthy by eating salad, but the dressing is turning your nutritious meal into a sugar bomb. Many bottled dressings contain more sugar per serving than cookies or candy bars.
The Sweet Truth About Hidden Sugars
The reality is that manufacturers add sugar to 74% of packaged foods sold in supermarkets. This means you’re getting sugar in places you’d never expect it. The average American adult, teenager, and child consumes about 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day, or about 270 calories, while health experts recommend no more than six to nine teaspoons daily.
These seemingly innocent foods are major contributors to our sugar overload crisis. Many people are now trying to minimize their sugar intake, but it’s easy to underestimate how much you’re actually consuming. One of the reasons is that many foods contain hidden sugars, including some foods that you wouldn’t even consider to be sweet. The key is reading labels carefully and choosing whole, unprocessed foods whenever possible. Did you expect that your morning yogurt had more sugar than a candy bar?
