well-being tip | sugar on ingredients lists

May 5, 2014

well-being tip: sugar on ingredients lists

When trying to avoid sugar or even just cut down, reading food labels can be difficult. Sugar is not always listed as sugar in an ingredients list. 

There are many many different names for sugar. And many times a food will have more than one sugar in the ingredients list. One trick I like to tell people is 

"If it ends in -ose and rhymes with gross"

When I taught kids nutrition they loved that. But it is an easy way to spot many sugars. The chemical name for sugar will often times end is -ose

  • glucose
  • sucrose
  • fructose
  • maltose
  • galactose


There are other names for sugar other than -ose though. Syrups and fruit juice concentrates are added sugar. 

You can find more information about sugar at Other Names for sugar on an ingredients list. There is a quick slide show that takes you through the names. 



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