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Shockingly, over 68% of barcoded food products sold in the US contain added sweeteners—even if they are labeled as “natural” or “healthy.”1

Just because you don’t see the word “sugar” on the ingredient list when scanning a nutrition label does not guarantee the item is sugar or sweetener-free.

Sugar goes by a slew of different names, making it easy for manufacturers to hide how much sugar is truly in a given product. A whopping 56 different names!

While some of these names are more obvious, like brown and cane sugar, others are trickier to spot, e.g., maltodextrin and dextrose…

The best way to ensure you’re not consuming excess added sugars is to get in the habit of scanning the ingredient list below before you throw the item in your cart. Keep in mind that ingredients are listed by quantity from high to low: the closer to the front of the list a form of sugar is, the more the product contains.

The Most Common Names for Sugar

(Excluding artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes)

‍Basic Simple Sugars (monosaccharides and disaccharides):

1. Dextrose
2. Fructose
3. Galactose
4. Glucose
5. Lactose
6. Maltose
7. Sucrose

Solid or Granulated Sugars:

8. Beet sugar
9. Brown sugar
10. Cane juice crystals
11. Cane sugar
12. Castor sugar
13. Coconut sugar
14. Confectioner’s sugar (aka, powdered sugar)
15. Corn syrup solids
16. Crystalline fructose
17. Date sugar
18. Demerara sugar
19. Dextrin
20. Diastatic malt
21. Ethyl maltol
22. Florida crystals
23. Golden sugar
24. Glucose syrup solids
25. Grape sugar
26. Icing sugar
27. Maltodextrin
28. Muscovado sugar
29. Panela sugar
30. Raw sugar
31. Sugar (granulated or table)
32. Sucanat
33. Turbinado sugar
34. Yellow sugar

Liquid or Syrup Sugars:

35. Agave Nectar/Syrup
36. Barley malt
37. Blackstrap molasses
38. Brown rice syrup
39. Buttered sugar/buttercream
40. Caramel
41. Carob syrup
42. Corn syrup
43. Evaporated cane juice
44. Fruit juice
45. Fruit juice concentrate
46. Golden syrup
47. High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
48. Honey
49. Invert sugar
50. Malt syrup
51. Maple syrup
52. Molasses
53. Rice syrup
54. Refiner’s syrup
55. Sorghum syrup
56. Treacle

*Note: If you spot any of these names listed on a label, keep in mind it’s not automatically a no-go. It’s the amount of sugar that counts! 

1. Popkin BM, Hawkes C. The sweetening of the global diet, particularly beverages: patterns, trends and policy responses for diabetes prevention. The lancet Diabetes & endocrinology. 2016;4(2):174-186. doi:10.1016/S2213-8587(15)00419-2.

This entry was posted on December 29, 2020 at 11:33 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.