Added sugar is any sugar that gets put into food or drinks during processing or preparation, as opposed to sugar that exists naturally in whole foods like fruit and milk. This includes obvious sweeteners like table sugar and honey, but also less recognizable ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, and concentrated fruit juice. The distinction matters because added sugars contribute calories without the fiber, vitamins, and minerals that naturally accompany sugar in whole foods.
Added Sugar vs. Natural Sugar
The sugar in an apple and the sugar in a cookie are chemically similar, but they arrive in your body under very different circumstances. When you eat a piece of fruit, the sugar comes packaged with fiber, water, and micronutrients. The fiber slows digestion, which means glucose enters your bloodstream gradually. Your body has time to respond.
Added sugars skip that process. They’re absorbed faster, which can spike blood glucose and trigger a larger insulin response. The FDA draws a clear line: naturally occurring sugars are those found in milk, fruits, and vegetables. Added sugars are those introduced during manufacturing, cooking, or at the table. Honey, maple syrup, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices all count as added sugars when used as ingredients in packaged foods, even though they come from natural sources.
Why Added Sugar Affects Your Health
Your liver processes most dietary sugars, converting them into usable energy. When you consistently eat more sugar than your body needs, the liver converts the excess into fat. Over time, that fat accumulates in the liver itself, potentially leading to fatty liver disease, which raises the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Excess added sugar also raises blood pressure and increases chronic inflammation, both of which contribute to cardiovascular problems. Sugary drinks are a particular concern because liquid calories don’t trigger the same fullness signals as solid food. Your appetite-control system essentially gets bypassed, making it easy to consume far more calories than you realize.
How Much Is Too Much
The American Heart Association recommends no more than 6 teaspoons (25 grams) of added sugar per day for women and 9 teaspoons (36 grams) for men. For children, the limit is 6 teaspoons, and children under 2 should avoid added sugars entirely. The World Health Organization suggests keeping added sugars below 10% of your total daily calories, with an ideal target of less than 5%, which works out to roughly 25 grams for an average adult.
To put that in perspective, a single 12-ounce can of cola contains about 39 grams of added sugar, already exceeding the daily limit for both men and women under AHA guidelines.
Where Most Added Sugar Comes From
The biggest sources in the typical American diet aren’t always the ones people expect. Sugar-sweetened beverages (sodas, sports drinks, sweetened teas, and fruit-flavored drinks) account for 24% of all added sugar intake. Desserts and sweet snacks like cookies, cakes, ice cream, and pastries come in second at 19%. Sweetened coffee and tea contribute 11%, candy and table sugar add 9%, and breakfast cereals and bars account for 7%.
Sandwiches, tied with cereals at 7%, are the real surprise on this list. The sugar hides in condiments, bread, and processed meats. Many foods that don’t taste sweet, including pasta sauce, salad dressing, yogurt, and granola bars, carry significant amounts of added sugar.
Spotting Added Sugar on Labels
The Nutrition Facts panel on packaged foods lists both “Total Sugars” and “Added Sugars” as separate line items. Total sugars include everything: the natural sugar in the milk or fruit in a product plus whatever was added during manufacturing. The added sugars line tells you exactly how much was put in.
The ingredient list is where things get tricky. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have identified at least 61 different names for sugar used on food labels. Some are obvious (brown sugar, cane sugar, corn syrup). Others are less so. Here are some of the most common names to watch for:
- Syrups: corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, rice syrup, malt syrup, barley malt syrup, golden syrup
- Chemical names: sucrose, dextrose, fructose, maltose, glucose
- “Natural” sweeteners: honey, agave nectar, maple syrup, molasses, coconut sugar
- Juice-based: fruit juice concentrate, evaporated cane juice, cane juice crystals
Manufacturers sometimes use multiple types of sugar in a single product. This pushes each one further down the ingredient list (ingredients are ordered by weight), making it look like sugar isn’t a primary component when, collectively, it is. If you see three or four different sugar names scattered through the list, the product likely contains more added sugar than any single ingredient suggests.
Common Points of Confusion
Honey and maple syrup are often marketed as healthier alternatives to white sugar. While they do contain trace minerals, the FDA classifies them as added sugars when used as ingredients. Your body processes them the same way it processes table sugar. The small amounts of nutrients they provide don’t offset the metabolic effects of the sugar itself.
Fruit juice concentrate is another source of confusion. Whole fruit contains natural sugar. But when fruit is juiced and then concentrated to use as a sweetener in other products, it functions exactly like any other added sugar. The fiber is gone, and what remains is essentially a sugar solution. This is why “sweetened with fruit juice” on a label doesn’t mean a product is free of added sugars.
100% fruit juice sits in a gray area. It contains only naturally occurring sugars and doesn’t count as added sugar on the label. But because juicing removes the fiber, drinking large amounts of fruit juice can affect blood sugar in ways that eating whole fruit does not.