Is It Keto? Hidden Sugar In Your Food

You would be amazed at where you will find hidden sugar in your food.

My mother called with a simple request. “Tell your father he’s eating too many baked beans. I told him they’re loaded with sugar but he won’t listen.”

Dad, a type 2 diabetic,  unhappily gets on the phone and I ask him about the type of beans he’s eating.

“They’re baked beans. I already looked at the label and it doesn’t say sugar so they’re ok.” I told him to read the label to me. “Small pea beans, water, molasses, salt, maple syrup, corn starch modified, spices, blah, blah, blah. See….no sugar.”

The only problem is there was plenty of added sugar.

Sure it didn’t say sugar but molasses and maple syrup are both sugars. Combined they added 12 grams of sugar (carbs) to each 1/2 cup serving. Also lets not forget that modified corn starch is a carbohydrate that is quickly broken down into sugar. Plus the beans themselves contain carbohydrates that are broken down by the body into sugar.

My father was doing what we all have done at one time or another. When we think of sugar we think of the white stuff and forget there are many other types of sugars that show up on ingredients labels. Often these added sugars are found in products we would never think have added sugar such as salad dressings or soup.

You can also use the nutritional label to determine the amount of carbs in the food you are eating. This too will help to point out that there may be added sugar in addition to the naturally occurring ones present in the food.

Here is a list of the various names that might be appearing in the products you eat that are actually sugar:

• • Agave nectar

  • Barbados Sugar

  • Barley malt

  • Beet sugar

  • Blackstrap molasses

  • Brown sugar

  • Buttered syrup

  • Cane crystals

  • Cane juice crystals

  • Cane sugar

  • Caramel

  • Carob syrup

  • Castor sugar

  • Confectioner’s sugar

  • Corn syrup

  • Corn sweetener

  • Corn syrup solids

  • Crystalline fructose

  • Date sugar

  • Demerara Sugar

  • Dextrin

  • Dextran

  • Dextrose

  • Diastatic malt

  • Diatase D-mannose

  • Evaporated cane juice

  • Ethyl maltol

  • Florida Crystals

  • Free Flowing Fructose

  • Fruit juice

  • Fruit juice concentrate

  • Galactose

  • Glucose

  • Glucose solids

  • Golden sugar

  • Golden syrup

  • Granulated sugar

  • Grape sugar

  • Grape juice concentrate

  • HFCS

  • High-fructose corn Syrup

  • Honey

  • Icing sugar

  • Invert sugar

  • Lactose

  • Malt syrup

  • Maltodextrin

  • Maltose

  • Mannitol

  • Maple syrup

  • Molasses

  • Muscovado sugar

  • Organic raw sugar

  • Palm sugar

  • Powdered sugar

  • Raw sugar

  • Refiner’s syrup

  • Rice Syrup

  • Sorbitol

  • Sorghum syrup

  • Sucrose

  • Sugar Syrup

  • Table sugar

  • Treacle

  • Turbinado sugar

  • Yellow sugar

If looking through the ingredients still leaves you wondering then just check the nutrition label to see how many total carbohydrates and how many grams of sugar the product contains. Total carbohydrates includes not only sugar but also starch (which convert over to sugar) as well as fiber (which does not convert to sugar). The listing for how many grams of sugar is just for the various types of sugar that have been added such as the maple syrup and molasses in the baked beans.

If the food contains a certain number of grams of total carbohydrates but shows as 0 grams of sugar then the carbs all come from starch and fiber. There would be no added sugar. This does not mean however that the product won’t raise your blood sugar levels. Remember that carbs will be converted to sugar and that is what brings your blood sugar levels up.

Take a look at some of the products that you enjoy. Check the ingredients label to see what is listed. Were you surprised to find one of the above names on the list? Was it an item that you never suspected had added sugar? 

 

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