Avoiding food with added sugars can be harder than expected

When we think of sugar, we think of dessert, whether its cake, ice cream, or even cookies. There’s no secret that those sweets contain sugar and usually lots of it. Although foods with added sugars can be harder to detect because often times it isn’t labeled sugar.

According to the American Heart Association, a child should have less than six teaspoons of added sugars or 100 calories a day.

“It goes under a lot of names. So you may have sugar you may have corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, you have isomalt, you may have barley malt, you might have fruit juice concentrate,” explains PRMC registered dietitian, Tamara Giles.

Giles says added sugars are different than the natural sugars we see in fruits. They are sugars and syrups put in foods during preparation or processing, or added at the table. Plus, the various names for added sugars makes it even harder for parents to measure their child’s intake, especially when added sugars come in unexpected sources.

“So on our plain chips we have less than one gram of sugar which is appropriate but simply going for the barbecue chips we already have three grams of sugar because of what’s in the barbecue sauce flavoring.”

Giles says those extra grams of sugar are in fact added sugar. So checking the labels, even on foods you wouldn’t expect, is important while tracking your sugar intake.

Jennifer Johnson from the Wicomico County Health Department explains going over the recommended amount can increase a child’s risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

“It really can lead to a lot of different things so I think as parents because we’re the ones buying the food, preparing the food so as parents we need to make sure that we’re on board with what we are feeding the children,” says Johnson.

The good news is it will get easier. The FDA is making all food labels have a new section called added sugars under the nutrition facts by 2018.