Sugar

Sugar

Most people in the UK are eating too much sugar and are restricting themselves on the amount of sweets, cakes, biscuits and fizzy drinks they consume.

Having sugary foods and drinks too often can cause tooth decay, especially if you have them between meals. Many foods that contain added sugar can also be high in calories so cutting down could help you control your weight.

Sugar levels

Make sure you read the labels thoroughly. Remember that other words can be used to describe added sugars, such as sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, hydrolysed starch and invert sugar, corn syrup and honey.

Another way of finding out how much sugar is in a food is to have a look for the ‘Carbohydrates (of which sugars)’ figure on the label, although this figure will not inform you how much is from added sugars – the type which should be cut down on.

Sometimes you will only see a figure for total ‘Carbohydrates’, not for ‘Carbohydrates (of which sugars)’, which means the figure also includes the carbohydrate from starchy foods.

High level = more than 15g sugar per 100g

Low level = 5g sugars or less per 100g

Any amounts of sugar that are in between these figures are classed as medium level sugar.

Remember that the quantity of food you eat will affect the amount of sugars you receive from it.

Related Articles