Writer(s):
May 16, 2014
Next month, I want to try to cut added sugars from my diet, but I’m confused when I look at the Nutrition Facts labels. For example, sliced fruit packed in juice seems to have a lot of sugar. How can I tell if it’s added sugar or just the natural sugars from the fruit and juice?
First, good for you for paying attention to added sugars in your diet. On average, Americans consume about 16 percent of their daily calories from sugars added during food production and processing, during cooking, or from the sugar bowl at the table. The nation’s Dietary Guidelines have recommended decreasing the amount of added sugars in the diet for years.
To answer your question, though, if the label says “100 percent juice,” there are no added sugars in the beverage.
This can get confusing because many food items that are labeled “100 percent juice” also list “fruit juice concentrate” on the ingredients label. Fruit juice concentrate is natural fruit juice with most of the water removed. If it’s not reconstituted — that is, if the same amount of water isn’t restored — then the concentrate is so sweet that it is considered an added sugar. But in order to claim “100 percent juice” on a label, the Food and Drug Administration says a food manufacturer must add as much water to a concentrated juice as appears in the original juice.
On the current Nutrition Facts labels, to find added sugars in foods, you need to examine the food ingredient listing and know to look for words like high fructose corn syrup, fructose, sucrose, dextrose or even honey. See a complete list of added sugars here: bit.ly/addedsugarslist.
But in March, the FDA proposed changing the Nutrition Facts label to clearly separate added sugars from other sugars. This way, consumers can tell at a glance if a product has added sugars, and how much. You can see the proposed new Nutrition Facts label at bit.ly/newlabel.
The World Health Organization recently drafted a recommendation for people to limit consumption of added sugars to as low as 5 percent of calories. That recommendation includes even 100 percent fruit juice. Although many other nutrition authorities don’t consider 100 percent fruit juice to be an added sugar, most recommend eating whole fruit rather than drinking just the juice. Juice lacks dietary fiber, and it’s easy to consume in excess, contributing extra calories.
Chow Line is a service of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and its outreach and research arms, Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Send questions to Chow Line, c/o Martha Filipic, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH, 43210-1043, or filipic.3@osu.edu.
Editor, please note: In May and June 2014, Chow Line will be published only every other week.
This column was reviewed by Carolyn Gunther, state specialist in Community Nutrition Education for Ohio State University Extension, the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
For a PDF of this column, please click here.
Writer(s):
For more information, contact:
Carolyn Gunther
OSU Extension, Community Nutrition Education