Different Ways Sugar Is Added to Food – 56 Sugar Pseudonyms to Watch Out For
If you’ve ever tried to follow a keto diet or a low-carb diet, or if you’ve ever just wanted to cut out added sugars in your daily meals, you’ll notice something strange. Food companies put sugar in everything. No, seriously. It’s in close to everything. Even in foods that aren’t sweet at all. Sugar pseudonyms are used to sneak added sugar in without anyone finding out.
Keep reading to find out all of the ways sugar is added to food without our knowledge! Sugar isn’t bad but too much of a sweet can have negative health consequences.
What is Sugar (and Sugar Pseudonyms) Added To
It’s not just desserts, sweets, or sugary drinks (such as sports drinks, sodas, vitamin water). Sugar is found in places you would not expect. Condiments like ketchup and BBQ, sauces like spaghetti sauce and cheese sauce, and many yogurts all have high amounts of added sugar!
Pre-made soups and other canned goods like beans tend to have high amounts of added sugar. Flavored coffee, cereals, granola bars, and protein bars all contain large quantities of sugar as well.
This is part of the reason low-fat diet items are not good for you; they replace fat with sugar fillers that can harm the body’s wellbeing.
Why Avoid Added Sugar
Eating too much sugar is incredibly bad for your health. High-sugar diets have been linked to obesity, coronary heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. High-sugar diets have also been found to disrupt the gut microbiota, causing sugar cravings and imbalanced intestinal flora.
However, because there is so much sugar hidden in foods, people often underestimate how much sugar they are actually consuming in their day-to-day lives. Many of these foods do not even taste sweet.
The daily dose recommended for women is 6 teaspoons of sugar per day, while men have a limit of 9 teaspoons of sugar.
56 Sugar Pseudonyms
The moment we’ve all been waiting for! The sweet list of pseudonyms. These do not add nutrition to meals, unlike complex carbohydrates. They are empty calories that have next to no benefit.
Here are all the different names for sugar. If you see these or any variation of these, know that your product has added sugar:
- Dextrose
- Fructose
- Galactose
- Glucose
- Lactose
- Maltose
- Sucrose
- Beet sugar
- Brown sugar
- Cane juice crystals
- Cane sugar
- Castor sugar
- Coconut sugar
- Confectioner’s sugar (aka, powdered sugar)
- Corn syrup solids
- Crystalline fructose
- Date sugar
- Demerara sugar
- Dextrin
- Diastatic malt
- Ethyl maltol
- Florida crystals
- Golden sugar
- Glucose syrup solids
- Grape sugar
- Icing sugar
- Maltodextrin
- Muscovado sugar
- Panela sugar
- Raw sugar
- Sugar (granulated or table)
- Sucanat
- Turbinado sugar
- Yellow sugar
- Agave Nectar/Syrup
- Barley malt
- Blackstrap molasses
- Brown rice syrup
- Buttered sugar/buttercream
- Caramel
- Carob syrup
- Corn syrup
- Evaporated cane juice
- Fruit juice
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Golden syrup
- High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
- Honey
- Invert sugar
- Malt syrup
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Rice syrup
- Refiner’s syrup
- Sorghum syrup
- Treacle
The Takeaway
There are many ways the food industry adds sugar to food. This can be hidden with several different names for sugar. Sugar pseudonyms are sneaky ways sugar can be added to foods.
Many things with added sugar do not even taste sweet and do not add nutritional value to our daily diets.
To not consume an excess of sugar, we must read the nutritional label correctly and take note of the additives, preservatives, and added sugar.
