Added sugars are any sugars or sweeteners put into foods during processing, preparation, or packaging. They include table sugar, syrups, honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices. They do not include the sugars naturally present in whole fruits, vegetables, or milk. The distinction matters because added sugars contribute calories without the fiber, vitamins, and minerals that come packaged with naturally occurring sugars in whole foods.
Added Sugars vs. Natural Sugars
An apple contains about 19 grams of sugar, but that sugar comes bundled with fiber, water, and micronutrients that slow digestion and provide real nutritional value. The sugar in a glass of milk (lactose) works the same way. These are natural sugars, and they’re part of a healthy diet.
Added sugars are different. When a manufacturer stirs corn syrup into yogurt or a baker dissolves table sugar into a sauce, those sugars add calories and sweetness without meaningful nutrition. Your body processes the sugar molecules themselves in similar ways, but the context changes everything. A piece of fruit fills you up. A sweetened drink does not, yet it can deliver far more sugar in a single serving.
One category that surprises people: concentrated fruit juice. Even though it originates from fruit, once the juice is stripped down and used as a sweetener in another product, the FDA classifies it as an added sugar. The fiber and whole-food matrix are gone, leaving essentially a liquid sweetener.
How Much Is Too Much
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend keeping added sugars below 10 percent of your total daily calories starting at age 2. On a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s no more than 200 calories from added sugars, or about 50 grams (roughly 12 teaspoons). For children under 2, the guidance is simpler: avoid added sugars entirely.
The American Heart Association sets a tighter limit, recommending no more than about 36 grams per day (9 teaspoons) for men and 25 grams (6 teaspoons) for women. To put that in perspective, a single 12-ounce can of regular soda contains about 39 grams of added sugar, which blows past both thresholds in one drink.
Health Risks of Excess Added Sugar
Consuming too much added sugar contributes to weight gain and obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. The mechanism isn’t complicated: added sugars pack calories into foods without making you feel full, so it’s easy to overeat. Over time, excess sugar intake promotes insulin resistance, drives up triglyceride levels, and increases fat storage, particularly around the liver and abdomen.
Sugar-sweetened beverages are a particular concern because liquids don’t trigger the same fullness signals as solid food. You can drink hundreds of extra calories in a few minutes without registering them the way you would if you ate the same calories as a meal. This is one reason public health agencies consistently single out sugary drinks as the largest single contributor of added sugars in most people’s diets.
Dental health takes a hit too. Bacteria in the mouth feed on sugar and produce acid, which erodes tooth enamel. Frequent sugar exposure throughout the day, from sipping sweetened coffee or snacking on candy, keeps that acid production running constantly.
Where Added Sugars Hide
The obvious sources are sodas, candy, cookies, and ice cream. But added sugars also show up in foods most people think of as healthy or neutral: flavored yogurt, granola bars, pasta sauce, salad dressing, bread, and instant oatmeal. Ketchup, barbecue sauce, and many canned soups contain surprising amounts. Even “whole grain” cereals marketed as nutritious can carry 10 or more grams of added sugar per serving.
Terms on packaging can also signal added sugar without using the word “sugar” directly. The CDC notes that descriptions like “glazed,” “candied,” “caramelized,” or “frosted” all indicate sugar was added during preparation.
Spotting Added Sugars on Labels
The Nutrition Facts panel on packaged foods lists “Total Sugars” and, indented beneath it, “Includes Xg Added Sugars.” Total Sugars combines both the naturally occurring sugars in the food (like lactose in a dairy product) and any added sugars. The indented line tells you exactly how many grams were put in during manufacturing. A percent Daily Value appears next to it, based on the 50-gram daily limit for a 2,000-calorie diet.
If a plain yogurt shows 12 grams of total sugars and 0 grams of added sugars, all that sugar is naturally occurring lactose. A flavored version of the same yogurt might show 22 grams total with 10 grams added, meaning the manufacturer stirred in 10 grams of sweetener.
Names for Added Sugar in Ingredient Lists
Manufacturers use dozens of names for added sugars. Scanning the ingredient list is useful because ingredients appear in order of weight, so if a sugar synonym shows up in the first few spots, the product is heavily sweetened. Common names to look for:
- Sugars: cane sugar, confectioner’s sugar, turbinado sugar, raw sugar, brown sugar, invert sugar
- Syrups: corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, rice syrup, malt syrup, maple syrup
- Other sweeteners: honey, agave, molasses, caramel
- Names ending in “-ose”: glucose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, sucrose
Some products list multiple types of sugar separately. This can push each one further down the ingredient list, making the product look less sugar-heavy than it really is. If you spot three or four different sugar names scattered through the list, the combined total may be substantial.
Sugar Alcohols and Artificial Sweeteners
Sugar alcohols (like erythritol, sorbitol, and xylitol) and zero-calorie sweeteners (like stevia and sucralose) are not classified as added sugars. They don’t appear on the “Added Sugars” line of the Nutrition Facts panel. Sugar alcohols do show up separately under total carbohydrates because they contain some calories, typically fewer per gram than regular sugar. If you’re specifically tracking added sugar intake, these substitutes won’t count toward your total, though they come with their own considerations like digestive side effects at higher doses for sugar alcohols.
Practical Ways to Cut Back
Replacing sweetened beverages with water, sparkling water, or unsweetened tea is the single highest-impact change most people can make, simply because drinks are the largest source of added sugars for the average person. Beyond that, comparing the added sugar line across brands of the same product (yogurt, cereal, bread) often reveals wide differences. One brand of pasta sauce might have 1 gram of added sugar per serving while another has 8.
Cooking at home gives you direct control. A homemade vinaigrette, oatmeal sweetened with fresh fruit, or plain yogurt with berries can replace packaged versions that rely on added sugar for flavor. Over time, taste buds adjust. Foods that once seemed bland at lower sweetness levels start tasting normal within a few weeks of reducing intake.