How do I know if my food contains sugar?

Upon request I am making a quick, short post about reading food labels and how to check for added sugars.

Reading food labels can be confusing sometimes, and when looking for sugar, admittedly, at first I had no idea what I was looking for specifically.

When looking for added sugars it’s important not to look at the nutritional value of food, as most foods will contain natural sugars of some sort. Instead, look at the ingredients list. If the ingredients list does not contain sugar of any kind you are basically good to go.

The hardest part is actually identifying the sugar. Sugar goes by many many names (at least fifty). You should look out for:

·        Agave Nectar

·        Barley Malt Syrup

·        Beet Sugar

·        Brown Rice Syrup

·        Brown Sugar

·        Cane Crystals (or, even better, "cane juice crystals")

·        Cane Sugar

·        Coconut Sugar, or Coconut Palm Sugar

·        Corn sweetener

·        Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids

·        Dehydrated Cane Juice

·        Dextrin

·        Dextrose

·        Evaporated Cane Juice

·        Fructose

·        Fruit juice concentrate

·        Glucose

·        High-fructose corn syrup

·        Honey

·        Invert sugar

·        Lactose

·        Maltodextrin

·        Malt syrup

·        Maltose

·        Maple syrup

·        Molasses

·        Palm Sugar

·        Raw sugar

·        Rice Syrup

·        Saccharose

·        Sorghum or sorghum syrup

·        Sucrose

·        Syrup

·        Treacle

·        Turbinado Sugar

·        Xylose

Additionally, check for E-numbers, as some E-numbers are simply sugar in disguise. Mainly E400 and E900 are likely to contain sugar of some kind.

In our challenge we are also not eating any sugar replacements for a month, like aspartame (E900-something, I believe) or stevia. So we are obviously checking for this on labels as well.