Paige Harris Welcome to day three of the Sugar Secrets Series! It’s time to talk hidden sugar.
Yesterday we talked about the different names for sugar. We learned that the food industry has come up with some pretty twisted ways of including sugar in its products while trying to keep you in the dark. How shady!
Unfortunately, the sugar industry has a few more dirty tricks up its sleeve. One trick they like to pull is putting added hidden sugar in places that you would never think to expect.
I’ve found added sugars in the following list of foods, and it completely shocked me! Take a look:
- Yogurt – If you’re downing a cup of fruit-flavored yogurt a day, listen up. An eight ounce serving of the average fruit variety non-fat yogurt contains 47 grams of sugar — 11 teaspoons! Actually, 11 teaspoons is almost 1/4 CUP of the white stuff!! This doesn’t mean you have to give up yogurt for good, but try Choosing Plain, Whole Milk Greek Yogurt or Skyr and adding your own fruit to keep the sugar under control!
- Nut Butters – Yeah, I’m looking at you, Skippy. A serving of the conventional creamy stuff has 3g of sugar, almost a full teaspoon. When you’re choosing a nut butter, I highly recommend going organic and choosing a raw variety if possible so you can avoid yucky added oils, too. Trader Joe’s Organic Valencia PB and Creamy Raw Almond Butter are two of my favs!
- Salad Dressings – You may expect to find sugar in a Maple Vinaigrette or a Honey Mustard Dressing, but hidden sugar likes to hang out in the Italians and Ranches of the world, too. Conventionally made salad dressings can have a bunch of other nasties in them too, so I highly recommend making your own! It’s cheaper, you’ll know where your oil is coming from, and you control any sugar that goes in! If you’re looking for a store bought alternative, try Primal Kitchen’s lineup.
- Jarred Pasta Sauce – This one drives me bonkers! I actually haven’t found a jar of pasta sauce yet that doesn’t include added sugar in some capacity. To work around this, I usually buy the canned variety! Trader Joe’s Marinara Sauce in a can is a sugar-free one!
- Beef Broth – I don’t know about you, but I was MAD about this one. Broth is SUPPOSED to be savory!! Almost every carton of broth I’ve ever picked up had some sort of added sugar. Swanson’s Unsalted Beef Broth is one of the only varieties I’ve been able to find with 0g of the stuff.
Which item were you most surprised to see on the list? Can you believe that these foods contain so much sugar? Tomorrow we’ll discuss the amount of sugar found in servings of different foods and compare a few. Because who knows, your favorite snack may as well be a dessert!
Talk to you soon!
