How to Read an Ingredient List and Find Hidden Sugar

Not in sweets, where it is obvious, but in foods that look like ordinary food.

Ketchup and ready-made sauces. Salad dressings. Marinades and BBQ sauces. Sweet and fruit yogurts. Muesli and granola. Protein and “fitness” bars. Flavored plant-based milk. Ready-to-drink coffee beverages. Sausages, pâtés, and processed meat products. Canned sauces and ready-made meals.

They have one thing in common: people do not consider them sweet, so they do not count them toward their carbohydrate intake.

Because ingredients are listed in descending order by quantity. The first ingredient is what the product contains the most of.

This leads to a practical rule: if sugar in any form is in the top three, do not buy the product. At the end of a long list, it usually amounts to a fraction of a percent and is not a reason to reject an otherwise suitable product.

One trick manufacturers use is to split sugar into several different syrups so that each one appears lower on the list separately. If you see three different syrups in the ingredient list, mentally add them together.

Look at carbohydrates per 100 g in the nutrition table — it is the quickest check when you do not have time to study the ingredient list.

Also look out for starches: modified starch, maltodextrin, and rice flour in sauces act like fast carbohydrates, even if they are not formally called sugar.

Low-fat products deserve a separate check: when fat is removed from a product, its flavor is most often restored with sugar.

Checking every ingredient list obsessively is not helpful for everyone. If you currently have or have previously had an eating disorder, the habit of studying every label can easily become compulsive — it is worth discussing boundaries with a specialist.

For diabetes, switching to “sugar-free” products does not eliminate the need to monitor glucose and is not a reason to change treatment without a doctor.

Three actions in fifteen seconds: turn the package over, read the first three ingredients, and check carbohydrates per 100 g.

If sugar under any name is in the top three, put the product back on the shelf. If carbohydrates per 100 g exceed ten, and the product is not a vegetable or a nut, it is worth thinking twice.

Everything else — the front of the package, promises, and “eco” and “fitness” symbols — provides no useful information.

The first figure is total carbohydrates in the product. The second is the portion of them that consists of simple sugars.

It is more useful to look at the first figure: starch is not counted as sugar in the ingredient list, but it behaves similarly in the body. A product with zero sugar and twenty grams of carbohydrates per 100 g is not suitable for you.

A separate line for “dietary fiber” means fiber, and it works in the opposite direction: the more of it there is, the milder the effect of the other carbohydrates.

Yes, and this is a separate trap. Manufacturers change recipes without warning: a product you checked six months ago may have changed.

This applies especially to relatively inexpensive products: sauces, sausages, and dairy products, where replacing an ingredient saves a few cents per unit.

A practical guideline: recheck the ingredients of regular purchases at least once every few months, and check any new package of a familiar product immediately.