Day 40: OMG! Look What Has Sugar In It!

Date: 2010.04.08 | Category: Scary Motivation! | Tags:

Shocking: Sugar Content of Common Food Products

By Daryo Pino, Huffington Post

Refined sugars and high-fructose corn syrup are considered by many experts to be the biggest contributors to obesity and poor health in Western civilization.

In her book What To Eat, Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at NYU and blogger at Food Politics suggests that any food that contains more than 15 grams of sugar per serving is closer to dessert than anything else. Though this number is arbitrary, it is a good benchmark for evaluating food products.

Obviously sugar content is not the only factor in a food’s nutritional value (and not all of these have added sugar), but it can be illuminating to see the relative amounts in the foods we consume.

Just for fun I looked up the sugar content of a few common foods and menu items. I hope you’re as horrified as I am.

Listed values are as close to a normal serving as I could approximate. Units are listed as grams of sugar.

Sugar Content of Common Food Products

1. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut …………………………………………………10 g

2. Luna Bar berry almond …………………………………………………………………………11 g

3. Froot Loops breakfast cereal 3/4 cup ……………………………………………………12 g

4. Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream ……………………………………………………………16 g

5. Starbucks caffè latte grande 16 oz …………………………………………………………17 g

6. Godiva 2 truffles ………………………………………………………………………………….17 g

7. Subway 6″ sweet onion teriyaki chicken sandwich ………………………………..17 g

8. Ms. Field’s chocolate chip cookie ………………………………………………………….19 g

9. Tropicana 100% orange juice 8 oz …………………………………………………………25 g

10. Yoplait original yogurt ………………………………………………………………………27 g

11. Craisins dried cranberries 1/3 cup ……………………………………………………….29 g

12. Vitamin Water 20 oz bottle ………………………………………………………………….33 g

13. Oscar Mayer Lunchables crackers, turkey & American cheese ……………….36 g

14. Coca-Cola Classic 12 oz can …………………………………………………………………..39 g

15. Sprinkles Cupcake red velvet ………………………………………………………………..45 g

16. California Pizza Kitchen Thai chicken salad ……………………………………………45 g

17. Jamba Juice blackberry bliss 16 oz ……………………………………………………….49 g

18. Odwalla SuperFood 450 ml bottle …………………………………………………………50 g

19. Starbucks caffe vanilla frappuccino grande 16 oz …………………………………..58 g

Take home messages:

* Foods we recognize as dessert (e.g. doughnuts, ice cream, cookies) often have far less sugar than things we consider “healthy” (e.g. juice, yogurt, dried fruit).

* Froot Loops aren’t necessarily better than doughnuts.

* Energy bars are glorified candy.

* Dessert is sometimes hidden in things like sandwiches.

* Some foods marketed to children aren’t much better than soda.

* A salad can have as much sugar as one of the biggest cupcakes I’ve ever seen.

* “Natural” foods can have lots of sugar.

* The worst offenders are drinkable.

* Starbucks is why you’re fat.

Darya is a scientist, foodie and advocate of local, seasonal foods. For more healthy eating tips visit her blog Summer Tomato. You can also connect with Darya on Twitter @summertomato and Facebook.

2 Responses to “Day 40: OMG! Look What Has Sugar In It!”

Susan 10/04/10 02:21

Dammmm, and I love my Tropicana — you’re killing my mornings!!!!
Meg 10/04/12 17:52

Hm, I’d be interested to see *added* sugars separated out from naturally occurring ones. While eating an orange is preferable, I don’t consider orange juice “unhealthy” – although based on grams of sugar alone, it appears as such!
In any case, I forgot my Mediterranean Chicken Salad at home this morning & stopped at Subway for lunch. They had a neat little chart— if you are trying to lower calories, eat this, but avoid adding this.
The chart had 3 columns… if you are trying to lower calories, fat, or sodium.

I chuckled thinking, “So where’s the ‘lower sugar’ one?” I bet we’ll see it eventually. We’ve already started seeing “lower sugar” versions of products such as oatmeal & granola bars, as well as foods labeled “No High Fructose Corn Syrup.” I predicted the latter years ago to my DH & we see it now, so I’m glad to see awareness slowly increase. I still roll my eyes remembering my dorm-mate freshman year of college in 1995 defending her choice of eating candy corn because it was “Fat free.” I’m not certain, but I do think she knew how idiotic it was & was only rationalizing the choice, but sad nonetheless.