Kathy Kolasa: Read the label to lower sugar intake | Feature Columnist

Do you know what is hiding in some of your favorite food and drink products? Reading ingredient and Nutrition Facts labels will help us understand what is in food and ensure we make informed decisions. Added sugars are just that — sugars added to foods and beverages during processing. They are added to increase shelf life, alter product properties like texture, thickness and color, and to make products taste better so we want more. They give calories without nutrition. Do not confuse added sugars with natural sugars that are in fruit and milk products.

The 2020-25 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) tell us that a healthy diet can have only 10 out of every 100 calories from added sugars. This means that if you are eating 2,000 calories a day, you could have up to 200 calories or 50 grams from added sugars. Most of us eat or drink more. For reference, a regular 20-ounce bottle of Gatorade has 136 calories from added sugars and a 12-ounce can of Coke has 156 calories. A Starbucks Grande White Chocolate Mocha without a whip contains 232 calories and sweet tea from restaurants may have 500 calories from added sugars.

This often leads to getting enough calories to maintain or gain weight while missing out on vital nutrients. These calories are known as empty calories. For example, both candy and fruit provide sugar, but fruit also contains dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and most candy just gives carbohydrates including sugar. A long-term intake of high amounts of added sugars can lead to Type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

The DGAs show that most of added sugars consumed in the U.S. come from sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts and sweet snacks, coffees and teas, candy and sugars, breakfast cereals and bars, sandwiches, and higher fat milk and yogurt. Experts from East Carolina University found that reducing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, like tea sweetened with sugar, results in weight loss and improved blood sugar control in both children and adults.

It was difficult to figure out in the past how much added sugar was in a product, but now they are listed on the Nutrition Facts Label. They are listed in grams and the corresponding daily value percentage under “Total Sugars” on the label. Total Sugars represents both the natural and added sugars in the item. The amount of added sugars is listed below. Sugars in the ingredient list can have a variety of names, including honey, agave, juice concentrate, maltodextrin, molasses, words ending in -ose, and any words containing sugar or syrup, like high fructose corn syrup.

You can identify items that are low in added sugars by the Daily Value (DV) percentage. If the Daily Value is 5 percent or less, it is a low sugar food. If the DV is 20 percent or more it is high. You can eat some high sugar foods and still eat healthily, but the main takeaway is to learn how to recognize them and limit how many you consume.

The New York Times published a Seven-Day Sugar Challenge to motivate readers to reduce added sugar intake with small changes each day. They suggested swapping sugary breakfast cereals, granola bars, muffins and fruity yogurt with eggs, berries, nuts, avocado and plain yogurt. They challenged people to eat whole foods over processed packaged foods and more fruit and vegetables, which are great snacks full of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. They found that roasting vegetables makes them taste sweeter and adding spices to dishes reduces sugar cravings. The challenge included drinking only water or seltzer.

A healthier way to satisfy a sugar craving could be replacing milk chocolate and candies with real dark chocolate, which contains antioxidants, fiber and minerals. Small efforts like these can make big differences. It’s never too late to make a New Year’s resolution. Challenge yourself today.