Sugar is everywhere in our food system. It’s cheap and abundant. Please remember: sugar is not an essential nutrient!

• Added sugars are different from natural sugars found in whole foods like fruit, dairy, vegetables.
• Labeling most often doesn’t differentiate between the two. Use your label reading skills!
  • Does the ingredient list show sugar, sucrose, cane sugar or other sweeteners like dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, corn syrup
• For women, less than 24g and men less than 36g sugar daily
  • That’s a lot! 24 g is approximately 4-6 tsp per day
• Avoid sweetened beverages
  • Alternatives: herbal teas (hot or cold), water with cucumber, mint or other herbs, water with citrus, sparkling or mineral water (ideally without natural flavors) with citrus or splash of juice. 
• Examples of an easy change to make
  • Rather than buying fruit flavored yogurts, which can have up to 30g of sugar, buy plain and add some honey and fruit of your own. 
• Why do we care?
  • Blood sugar balance 
  • Heart health
• Avoid artificial sweeteners!
  • Strong link to cancer
  • Full of chemicals
  • Can worsen metabolic health
  • Can worsen sugar cravings