Unpacking Sugar: What Most Food Labels Don’t Tell You

Oh, Sweet Sugar, Oh Sweet Life.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word sugar? Is it the sweet, white granules that you put in your morning tea or coffee? The sweet taste from candy? Or perhaps the juicy taste of an apple that you pick straight from a tree?

What exactly is sugar? To understand that, let’s quickly glance at what carbohydrates are.

You know how proteins are created from smaller fragments called amino acids? Similarly carbohydrates are also created from fundamental building blocks, and from that can generally be divided in 3 main groups:

Monosaccharides: The simplest form of carbs, consisting of a single molecule, like glucose or fructose.
Disaccharides: Compounds formed by two monosaccharides, like sucrose (aka table sugar).
Polysaccharides: Longer chains of monosaccharides, like starch.

When you glance at a food label, the "sugars" section typically refers to the sum of mono- and disaccharides.

Sugar: Friend or Foe?

It’s no secret that excessive sugar consumption can harm your health. As a result, many people scrutinize labels and avoid foods high in sugar. While this approach may often be valid, it’s not always that straightforward.

You see, sugars can be found in both processed foods like cakes and sauces, as well as natural occurring sources such as fruits and dairy. No credible nutrition expert would advise you to eliminate fruit from your diet due to their sugar content. In fact, the opposite is often true: many people could benefit from including more fruits in their diet. Research consistently shows that people who regularly eat fruits and berries have better health outcomes than those who don’t. Not only including fruits and berries in your diet reduces the risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovaskular disease, stroke and cancer [1], it might also have a positive effect on your mental health [2]. The suggestion to limit your sugar intake primarily refers to added sugars - those introduced during the food production. While table sugar is the most obvious one, ingredients like honey and various syrups also fall under this category. Caution is advised with added sugars, as their consumption has been linked to higher risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, poor dental health, and other adverse health outcomes. The recommendation is to ideally limit added sugar intake to less than 25 grams per day. [3]

But here is the issue: in many countries food labels don’t distinguish between added sugars and naturally occurring ones. Instead, they simply list “sugars,” which can encompass both. This ambiguity makes it difficult for you to track your intake of added sugars. For example, if a product contains both fruit/vegetables/dairy and added sugar, you won’t know how much of the listed sugar comes from natural sources versus added ones.

The Labeling Puzzle

To complicate matters even more, food producers often use a variety of terms to describe added sugars. Think syrups, invert sugar, honey, or even “dextrose” (a technical term for glucose). Even if you check the ingredients list for clues, understanding the exact contribution of added sugars in many cases might still remain a challenge.

Our Solution

To help address this, we’ve developed an optimization algorithm designed to estimate the full nutritional profile of packaged foods, which also includes the likely amount of added sugars. While it’s not flawless — it’s an estimation, after all — it provides a clearer picture of your daily added sugar intake.

So, if you want to know whether you are surpassing your added sugar limits, pre-order our app and be one of the first ones to find that out.

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