Most health authorities recommend keeping added sugar under 25 to 50 grams per day, depending on which guideline you follow and whether you’re male or female. That range spans roughly 6 to 12 teaspoons. The number that applies to you depends on your calorie needs, your sex, and how conservative you want to be.
The Three Main Guidelines
Three organizations set the benchmarks most often cited, and they don’t all agree.
The American Heart Association sets the strictest targets: no more than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) of added sugar per day for women and 36 grams (9 teaspoons) for men. These numbers are specifically about added sugar, not the sugar naturally present in fruit or milk.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans takes a broader approach, recommending that added sugars stay below 10% of your total daily calories. On a standard 2,000-calorie diet, that works out to about 50 grams, or 12.5 teaspoons. If you eat closer to 1,600 calories, the ceiling drops to around 40 grams.
The World Health Organization also recommends keeping “free sugars” below 10% of total energy intake, with a conditional recommendation to aim for under 5% for additional health benefits. At 5%, a 2,000-calorie diet allows just 25 grams. The WHO uses the term “free sugars,” which includes honey, syrups, and fruit juice concentrates alongside the usual added sugars.
Added Sugar vs. Natural Sugar
Every guideline draws a line between sugars that are added during processing and sugars that occur naturally in whole foods. The sugar in an apple, a carrot, or a glass of plain milk does not count toward your daily limit. These foods come packaged with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and water that slow digestion and provide nutritional value.
Added sugars, by contrast, include table sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, syrups, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices. The FDA defines them this way on nutrition labels, and it’s the category every major guideline targets. So when you see “26 grams of sugar” on a container of plain yogurt, that’s almost entirely lactose, a naturally occurring milk sugar. But when flavored yogurt lists 14 grams of added sugar on top of that, those 14 grams are the ones to track.
How to Read a Nutrition Label
Since 2020, U.S. nutrition labels have been required to list added sugars as a separate line beneath total sugars. This makes tracking much simpler than it used to be. The label also shows a “% Daily Value” based on 50 grams, which aligns with the federal 10% guideline on a 2,000-calorie diet. If you’re following the American Heart Association’s stricter recommendation, you’ll need to do your own math against a 25- or 36-gram ceiling.
A quick conversion makes this easier in the real world: 4 grams of sugar equals one teaspoon. Divide any gram number on a label by four, and you can picture the sugar in a form you recognize. A can of regular soda with 39 grams of added sugar holds nearly 10 teaspoons. A granola bar with 12 grams has three.
Where Added Sugar Hides
The obvious sources, like soda, candy, and pastries, account for a large share of the average person’s sugar intake. But processed foods that don’t taste particularly sweet can carry surprising amounts. Pasta sauces, salad dressings, bread, ketchup, and flavored oatmeal all routinely contain added sugar. Breakfast cereals vary widely. A reasonable target when choosing cereal is 10 to 12 grams of sugar per serving or less.
Beverages deserve special attention. Sweetened coffee drinks, fruit juices (even 100% juice, which counts as free sugar under WHO guidelines), sports drinks, and sweetened teas can deliver 30 to 60 grams in a single serving. For many people, cutting liquid sugar is the fastest way to get within recommended limits. Research has consistently linked sugar-sweetened beverages to higher cardiovascular risk, and body weight appears to mediate a significant portion of that relationship, particularly for sugary drinks.
Why the Limits Exist
Excess added sugar contributes to weight gain, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease, and tooth decay. The cardiovascular connection is particularly well established. Studies have found significant associations between higher added sugar intake and cardiovascular disease risk, with sugary beverages showing some of the strongest links. Part of that risk runs through weight gain: in one analysis, BMI mediated roughly 19% of the association between total added sugar and hypertension, and nearly 37% of the association when the sugar came from beverages.
Sugar also displaces more nutritious foods. Every calorie from added sugar is a calorie that could have come with fiber, protein, or micronutrients. Over time, a high-sugar diet tends to crowd out the foods your body needs most.
Choosing Your Target
If you’re looking for a single number, 25 grams per day is the most protective target supported by major guidelines. It aligns with the AHA recommendation for women and the WHO’s 5% conditional recommendation. For men, the AHA allows up to 36 grams. The federal guideline of 50 grams (on a 2,000-calorie diet) is the most lenient and the easiest to hit, but it represents an upper ceiling rather than an ideal.
In practice, most Americans consume far more than any of these targets. Estimates put the average at around 17 teaspoons (roughly 68 grams) per day. Closing that gap doesn’t require perfection. Swapping sweetened beverages for water, choosing plain yogurt over flavored, and checking labels on condiments and sauces can cut 20 to 30 grams without dramatically changing what you eat.
Children under 2 should have no added sugar at all. For kids aged 2 and older, the same 10% guideline applies, which means their gram limit is lower because their calorie needs are smaller. A child eating 1,200 calories a day would cap added sugar at about 30 grams.