How To Cut Down Sugar Intake
A lot of people try to cut down their sugar intake. It's one of the most common healthy eating goals, and one that I often recommend to my clients.
In this article, I'll explain the type of sugar you should cut down (it's not just sugar in general) and how to do it.
Sugar is everywhere. It’s in the foods you know you should probably be eating less of, like candy and other junk foods, but it’s also in things that don’t even taste sweet, like bottled pasta sauces, soups, and breads, and foods that claim to be healthy, like protein and granola bars.
Do You Need To Cut Down All Sugar?
No! I hear a lot of people talk about avoiding fruit because it’s high in sugar. I don’t recommend that. There’s a big difference between added sugars and the sugar found naturally in whole foods.
Added sugars are sugars that aren't found naturally in foods. They include sugars and syrups that manufacturers add to products like sodas, flavored yogurts, candies, cereals, and cookies, as well as sugar you add yourself, like the teaspoon of sugar in your coffee.
Some foods, like fruits, vegetables, and milk, naturally contain sugars. The sugars in those foods are not added sugars.
How Do Added Sugars Affect Your Health?
Your body uses sugar as a form of energy. Some sugar, especially the natural sugar found in fruits, vegetables, and milk doesn’t have a negative effect on your body because those foods also contain nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Your body digests those foods slowly (due to their nutrient content), so the sugar in them offers a steady supply of energy to your cells.
Added sugars, on the other hand, contribute zero nutrients and are usually found in larger amounts than natural sugars. Without other nutrients and fiber to slow their digestion, added sugars flood your bloodstream quickly.
This is often more sugar than your body can break down for energy at one time, so that sugar is instead stored away as body fat.
High levels of sugar, especially in sugary drinks such as sodas, energy drinks, and sports drinks, affects your appetite-control system. Sugar doesn’t make you feel full.
In fact, it “tricks” your brain into craving even more sugar, so it’s easy to overeat and take in too many calories. High-sugar foods also tend to displace healthier options in your diet, so people who eat a lot of high-sugar foods can miss out on important nutrients.
Excess added sugar intake can contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes (although too much sugar doesn’t directly cause diabetes). Too much added sugar has also been found to raise blood pressure, increase chronic inflammation, and negatively affect your liver (which works overtime to process the extra sugar in the body).
All of those things, plus weight gain, are linked to heart disease and an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
How Much Is Too Much?
It’s recommended that women limit their added sugar intake to no more than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) and men limit their intake to no more than 38 grams (9 teaspoons) per day. Most people take in far too much added sugar, often without realizing it.
In fact, the average American consumes about 88 grams of added sugar a day. That’s more than 2-3 times as much as is recommended for adults.
It’s pretty easy to go past those limits if you eat a lot of ultra-processed foods. Just one 12-ounce can of regular soda contains 32 grams of sugar (and zero nutrition).
Your Best Defense Against Added Sugar Is To Check The Ingredient List
The nutrition facts label will tell you how much total sugar is in a product, but unfortunately, not all labels distinguish between natural sugars and added sugars.
When the label lists total sugars but not added sugars, check the ingredient list. Be sure to look for foods and drinks that don’t have sugar (or some other sweetener) listed as the first ingredient.
Ingredients are listed in order of their quantity in the food, with ingredients found in the greatest amount listed first, followed in descending order by those in smaller amounts. An ingredient list that states sugar as the first ingredient contains more sugar than any other ingredient. Click Here for more information about reading the ingredient list.
Be careful, though. Some ingredient lists mask the amount of sugar in a product.
To avoid having “sugar” as the first ingredient, food manufacturers may use multiple forms of sugar– each with a different name – and list each one individually on the nutrient label.
By using this tricky tactic, sugars are represented separately in smaller amounts, but if you added up all of the different types of sugar in the product, it may be the main ingredient.
Click Here for a list of other names for sugar (scroll down and look on the right side of the page for the list of “61 Names for Sugar”).
How To Cut Down Your Added Sugar Intake
Step 1: Track Your Sugar Intake – Two Ways To Do It
The first step in reducing your added sugar is to find out how much you’re currently eating. Spend a week tracking your intake, paying special attention to added sugars.
Track The Numbers. Check food labels or use a food tracking app that gives you added sugar information. This can sometimes be tricky, since not all food labels or tracking programs separate added sugar from natural sugar. Remember, natural sugar isn’t an issue, it’s added sugars that you should be trying to limit.
To count your added sugar intake, assume that all sugar in highly processed foods like sodas and cakes are added sugar, and all sugar in whole foods like whole fruits are natural sugar.
Some foods have both natural and added sugars. To estimate the amount of added sugar from a product’s total sugar, compare plain vs. flavored products.
For example, a 6-oz plain Greek yogurt has 7 grams of sugar listed, whereas the strawberry version of the same product has 16 grams. You can deduce that the strawberry product has about 9 grams of added sugar.
Track By “High”, Medium”, and “Low” Foods. If you don’t want to calculate the numbers, you don’t have to. You can also keep a simple food journal where you write down whether each food you eat is “high”, “medium”, or “low” in added sugars.
Here’s a little trick you can use when looking at food labels. Look at the column that says “% Daily Value”. If the percent daily value of a certain nutrient is 5% or less, that’s considered low in that nutrient. If the percent daily value is 20% or more, that’s considered high in that nutrient. Between 5-20% would be medium in that nutrient.
You can quickly scan the label and get an idea of whether the food is high, medium, or low, without having to add up the number of grams.
You can also just ballpark it. You probably have a pretty good idea of what high sugar foods are – ultraprocessed junk foods, candies, sugary breakfast cereals, sodas. You probably also know that most whole, minimally processed foods are low in added sugars. For the ones you’re not sure about, check the labels.
Step 2: Set A Goal
Once you know your baseline sugar intake, set yourself a goal. As always, makes sure it’s small and achievable at first, like cutting down your added sugar intake by 5 or 10% (if you’re tracking numbers), or replacing one of your usual high sugar foods with a low sugar one.
Once you’re comfortable with that level, you could set yourself a new goal to lower it a little more, and so on.
Make sure you create a plan to achieve that goal. Always think through exactly what you will do, how and when you will do it, and what you will do if obstacles get in your way.
Extra Tips:
Make Some Healthy Shifts
Replace foods and drinks high in added sugars with healthier options. You could:
Eat fruit for dessert instead of cookies or cakes
Swap sugary cereals for unsweetened cereal with fruit
Drink water or milk with meals instead of sodas
Add 1 teaspoon of sugar to your tea or coffee instead of 2
In recipes, cut the sugar by one-third to one-half, or substitute unsweetened applesauce in equal amounts. Often you won’t notice the difference.
Instead of adding sugar in recipes, use extracts such as almond, vanilla, orange or lemon.
Enhance foods with spices instead of sugar; try ginger, allspice, cinnamon or nutmeg.
Click Here for more tips to reduce added sugars. Identify a few strategies that will work for you and add them to your action plan.
Cook More At Home
Food manufacturers cram an incredible amount of added sugar into their highly processed foods. They do that to sell their products and make money, they definitely don’t have your best interests at heart.
The best way to avoid sneaky added sugars is to cook as many of your meals at home as possible, where you can control the ingredients. Click Here for healthy low-sugar recipes.
Use Added Sugar Strategically
If you’re going to add sugar, use it to make healthy foods a little tastier. Try a little bit of sugar in your unflavored yogurt or plain oatmeal. That way, you can enjoy nutritious foods a little more and benefit from all the vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants that come with them.