Your best friend and ally in helping you reduce sugar intake has always been at your fingertips - the Nutrition Facts panel. Hopefully soon, with one small change, this trusted source of nutrition information will help you even further in slashing sugar to a more reasonable amount.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing that the nutrition facts label on packaged foods include the percent daily value (DV) for added sugars.  Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is and it’s been long overdue.

Currently, the Nutrition Facts panel only shows the grams of sugar within a food product and not how that fits into the percentage of what a person is allowed for a daily amount.  Notice in the example below, there is no percentage out to the right of “sugars” which falls under “total carbohydrate.”  The percent DV is based on a 2,000 calorie diet for healthy adults.  As an example, total fat shown on the nutrition facts panel below, shows 18% DV – this means that a serving of this food provides 18% of the total fat you need each day. 

But since there is no % DV listed by sugar, only the gram amount, you have no idea if that amount is considered high or low or what.  A reason why there has been no % DV for sugar is that no recommendations had been made in the past for the total amount to eat in a day.  Now there is a recommendation which is addressed further in this article.  Trans fats also do not have a % DV as these are not necessary in the diet; there is often no % DV for protein as well since protein intake is not considered a public health concern for people age 4 and older. 

Why sugar needs to have a % DV

Over the past 30 years, Americans appetite for sugar has steadily increased.  When the low-fat diet phase of the 1990’s became popular, food companies simply replaced the fat with sugar to make the food more palatable.  Bad idea.  Americans waistlines increased, rates of diabetes exploded along with increases in heart disease.  Increased sugar consumption is not totally to blame, but with its addictive nature, it doesn’t help.  If a % DV is listed behind sugar, at least the public will have a little bit more information to make a better informed decision if they want to buy that product. 

In the nutrition facts panel example shown above, the product has 15 grams of sugar.  Many of us have no idea what 15 grams of sugar looks like.  What we understand better is percentages. Here’s what you need to know:

·         One teaspoon of sugar equals 4 grams of sugar

·         There are 4 calories per gram of sugar

·         In the nutrition facts label example above, there would be 3.75 teaspoons of sugar per serving (15 divided by 4)

·         60 calories (15 x 4) of the total 210 calories come from sugar. 

·         29% of the total calories (60 divided by 210) are coming from sugar. 

What’s the difference between natural and added sugar?

Natural sugar, just like it sounds, is sugar found naturally in foods such as milk and fruits.  But milk and fruit also have abundant vitamins, minerals, calcium, fiber, phytochemicals and other important nutrients for good health. 

Added sugars include any sugar added to food or beverages during processing or preparation, like adding sugar to your cereal.  Depending on the food, many food products contain way more sugar than we realize.  Reading the nutrition facts label will open your eyes to how much sugar is in many products. 

When a food product has no milk or fruit in it, then all the sugar in the product is from added sugars.  But if there is milk or fruit in the product, such as raisins in the cereal Raisin Bran, then the total sugar content includes both natural and added sugars.

These added sugars lack nutrients and are referred to as empty calories.  Meaning they provide calories, but little else – no vitamins, minerals, fiber, or phytochemicals.  The higher the percent of your calories coming from added sugars throughout the day, the less nutrients you consume, damaging your health.

Read the ingredient list – ingredients are listed in order of predominance by weight.  If sugar is near the top of the ingredient list, most likely the food is high in sugar.  Sugar also goes by various names, so look for these words that all mean added sugar:

·         Brown sugar

·         Corn sweetener

·         Corn syrup and High-fructose corn syrup

·         Fruit juice concentrate

·         Honey

·         Invert sugar

·         Malt sugar

·         Molasses

·         Raw sugar

·         Any word ending in “ose” (maltose, fructose, glucose, dextrose, sucrose)

What is the recommended daily sugar limit for adults?

The American Heart Association recommends limiting the amount of added sugars for men and women as the following:

·         For men – No more than 150 calories a day or 9 teaspoons which is equal to 36 grams of added sugar.

·         For women – No more than 100 calories a day or 6 teaspoons which is equal to 24 grams of added sugar. 

Remember, this is counting only added sugars not natural sugars found in milk and fruits.  For example, if you drink 8 ounces or 1 cup of skim milk which contains 11 grams of sugar, that’s from the natural sugar lactose found in milk, not from any added sugars.  Skim milk is an excellent source of calcium, protein, riboflavin along with vitamins A and D and you would not need to count this as an added sugar – the same goes for sugar found in fruit. In contrast, a 12-ounce soft drink averages about 8 teaspoons of added sugar or 128 calories with zero nutrition and this would count towards the amount of added sugars allowed. 

How to use this information

The best way to use this information is to make your opinion known to the FDA.  Starting Monday, July 27, 2015, you as a consumer can submit comments to the FDA on this proposal for the next 75 days.  Let the FDA know this is a necessary addition to the nutrition facts label as it will give all of us more thorough information on the amount of added sugars in our packaged foods.

The more the American public sends the message to include the percent daily value for sugar, the more likely the FDA will bend to the will of the consumers and not to the sugar lobbyists.  In the meantime, if you don’t already, make it a habit to look at the nutrition facts labels on food noticing the sugar content – it may be a little more sickeningly sweet than you realized. 

ABOUT CHERYL MUSSATTO

REGISTERED DIETITIAN

Cheryl Mussatto has over 30 years of experience as a Registered Dietitian and has worked in a variety of settings that cover a wide span of nutrition experience.  Currently she works as an adjunct professor for two community colleges, Allen Community College in Burlingame and Butler Community College in Council Grove, Kansas teaching two courses, Basic Nutrition and Therapeutic Nutrition. Cheryl also is a contributing author for osagecountyonline.com, an online newspaper and Edietitians, a global free nutritional and health magazine. Her articles for both publications pertain to nutrition topics that cover a diversity of health and nutrition interests for the general public.  She is also certified as a health and wellness coach.