It’s not a secret that sugar is bad for your health. I’m not talking about natural sugars we eat with fruits and honey – that amount is miniscule compared to all the sugar we consume with seemingly sugarless products. You don’t have to munch on cookies and chocolate bars every day to eat sugar – there are products that contain lots of it that aren’t even sweet! Yep, even that tomato soup you buy from the supermarket contains your daily dose of sugar. If you want to seriously cut on sugar, you need to know a few tricks. Here are 10 foods that contain way more sugar than you think.
Soda
Companies like to conceal how much sugar they’re putting in their products, that’s why they come up with various names for it to deceive the buyer. You may be looking for plain old sugar, but instead you’ll be seeing sucrose, carob syrup, fructose, dextrose, and whatnot. You really need to up your chemical game to understand just how much sugar is in the product you’re buying. Soda is a pretty obvious choice, but hear this – a can of soda contains 29 grams of sugar, that’s more than your daily dose! Women are advised to consume 25 grams of sugar per day, while men can consume up to 36 grams.
Flavoured Yoghurt
Flavoured yoghurt may be advertised as healthy, but it’s rarely the case. Especially those low-fat ones – companies put more sugar to compensate for the lack of taste, making flavoured yoghurt as healthy as a scoop of ice-cream. One 8-ounce yoghurt can contain up to 33 grams of sugar, so you better read the labels carefully. Best option is to buy plain yoghurt and add your own fresh fruits and honey.
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Agave Syrup
Agave syrup is usually advertised as a healthy sugar substitute, but it’s far from that. It’s 85% fructose, which hits your liver and can cause huge problems in the long run. It’s harder for your body to metabolise fructose than, say, sucrose, but ultimately none is better than the other. Still, it will be a bit easier for your body to metabolize cane sugar than agave.
Granola Bars
Granola bars are no better than candies with their chocolate or yoghurt coating packed with sugar. They may also contain brown sugar, honey, corn syrup and other unhealthy sweeteners. Half a cup of granola may seem like an innocent snack, but it packs around 10 grams of sugar. If you don’t feel full enough and eat one more serving it’ll become a sugary disaster for your body.