What’s A Name Worth?

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the potential addictive nature of sugar. I won’t get into that aspect again, since y’all can simply go read yesterday’s post if you haven’t already. But after having that post go live, I had some folks as for examples of the different names that companies use for sugar in their ingredients. As I wrote in my post Fruit Juice Is Bad For You from two weeks ago, foods that are advertised as “No Sugar Added” or “Natural” won’t necessarily be sugar-free.

In that spirit, I thought I would share a list of different names that companies use in their ingredient lists to replace the word “sugar.” This is not a comprehensive list, simply the ones I’ve seen or are aware of. Here we go… (takes a deep breath)

Dextrose, Fructose, Glucose, Lactose, Maltose, Sucrose, pretty much any word with “ose” at the end… Cane juice or Cane sugar, Corn Syrup, Maltol, pretty much anything followed by the word “syrup”, Caramel, Cane juice, Honey, Molasses… (exhales and tries to catch his breath).

Those were just the ones that I know about. I found an article posted by VirtaHealth.com that lists 56 different names for sugar. You can give it a gander and see for yourself. Some of them sound like perfectly normal foodstuffs and you wouldn’t assume that they refer to sugar. And since the ingredient list usually runs from highest to lowest amount, the closer to the beginning of the ingredient list that the word is found, the higher the content. Something to keep in mind when trying to reduce your sugar consumption. ☯