List of different names for sugar

Why is it so hard to determine what is sugar on a label?

The food industry has become aware that consumers are reading labels more now than ever.  We are reading these labels because more and more consumers are becoming more health conscience.  Wether you are on the Keto diet or any other of the numerous diets available, or if you just want to know what you are eating or feeding your kids, people are reading labels.  In general, people commonly read the calories, carbohydrates, salt, fat, cholesterol, and sugar contents.  These are all things that we have been told to watch in our diets since we were kids.

One of the biggest issues is the amount of sugar in foods.  Because consumers are more informed about the dangers of too much sugar, the food industry has become sneaky about hiding sugars in foods.  On some labels, you will see two categories of sugar.  The first is how much sugar the product has in it naturally.  The second category is added sugars, meaning that the manufacturer has added sugar to make the food taste better and thus sell better. 

The FDA and USDA have tried to define the term added sugars, but they are leaving it up to us to do our due diligence to determine the various names of sugar, and how much we are actually getting.  While some manufacturers will add the “Added Sugars” line on the Nutrition Facts”, I don’t think they are required to do so.  That is why some labels have the “Added Sugars” and some do not.  The food industry sees this as a huge loophole that they exploit.  This means that they do not have to list all of the sugars in the food on the Nutrition Facts, just the sugars that are naturally in the food. 

What does that mean exactly?  Well, that means that you have to actually read the Ingredients list to guesstimate how much sugar you are actually getting.  An important fact to remember is that the ingredients are listed by weight, not calories.  Now you may be seeing why they use a whole list of different names for sugar in the ingredient list.  It is simply to put a name on the ingredient list that you will not recognize as sugar, so that they are able to pull the wool over your eyes.  Some of these terms are long and fancy, and if you are like many people will just look at the name and say “I have no idea what the heck that is.” and move on.  Unless you are going to google every term you don’t know, you might be googling for a long while, you will not know what you are getting. Hopefully the list of terms below will help you determine what is a sugar.  Another trick that many manufacturers use is to use several different terms for sugar on the ingredient list and not just one.  One reason that they do this is so that the sugars individually will be less weight, therefore are lower down on the ingredient list (giving the illusion that there is less sugar added). 

For example, if the manufacturer wanted to sweeten product “X” they could do it many different ways.  For this example, lets say that they wanted to use 20 grams of sugar.  If they listed the 20 grams of sugar in the ingredient list, it would be higher up the ingredient list and since they labeled it as sugar, every consumer will know exactly what they are getting.  That simply is not how the food industry works though.  So instead of using 20 grams of sugar, they may use 10 grams of high fructose corn syrup, 5 grams of beet sugar, 3 grams of fruit juice, and 2 grams of rice malt.  They still have the 20 grams of sugar, but they divided it up.  Those ingredients will now be lower on the ingredient list.  They are also not plainly labeled sugar, so some people may not recognize what it is.

I don’t know about the rest of you reading this blog, but I can understand the “Nutrition Facts” portion of the label easily, the “Ingredients” can be a whole different story.  This is the area where manufacturers have gotten very creative about hiding sugars.  There are a lot of terms in the ingredient list that by just reading the term, I have no idea what it is.  For example, monosodium glutamate.  It is more commonly known as MSG, which is a flavor enhancer (and not recommended by many doctors because of a lot of debate on its health effects).  I think that there are a lot of other people out there that have the same issue when reading the ingredients list.  While I would like to be able to explain what all of those long fancy names are, that would be a titanic task.  So for this blog, I will narrow my focus down just to sugars, and some of the many terms used.

One tip when trying to determine if something is a sugar, look to see if the ingredient ends with “ose”.  If the term does end with -ose, then there is a really good chance that it is a sugar.

Some examples: Dextrose, Fructose, Glucose, Lactose

Of course, if you see the term sugar or syrup, that should also be a dead giveaway.

Use caution with “Organic” products.  I am not cautioning you against eating organic, just the opposite.   Where i want you to use caution is with the added sugars.  I have seen many products that sound good (and I bought them because they are organic).  After I got home and was reading the label more closely, I saw that it had added sugars.  I was so frustrated, “I bought organic darn it!”.  Just because the product is organic does not mean that it will not have added sugars.  The manufacturers are adding organic sugars.  For example added “organic coconut sugar”.  Keep in mind when you are looking at organic products that you still need to read the labels.

While this list is by no means all inclusive, it will definitely get you on the right path to identifying most sugar synonyms.  Hopefully this helps you to be able to read through the marketing language that is used on ingredient lists.

1. Agave nectar

2. Anhydrous dextrose

3. Barley malt

4. Beet sugar

5. Blackstrap molasses

6. Brown sugar

7. Buttered syrup

8. Cane juice crystals

9. Cane crystals

10. Cane sugar

11. Caramel

12. Carob syrup

13. Castor sugar

14. Coconut sugar

15. Concentrated fruit juice

16. Confectioner’s sugar

17. Corn syrup

18 Corn syrup solids

19. Crystalline fructose

20. Crystal dextrose

21. D-ribose

22. Date sugar

23. Dehydrated fruit juice

24. Demerara sugar

25. Dextrin

26. Dextran

27. Diatase

28. Diatastic malt

29. Diglycerides

30. Disaccharides

31. Ethyl maltol

32. Evaporated cane juice

33. Florida crystals

34. Fructose

35. Fructose sweetener

36. Fructooligosaccharides

37. Fruit juice

38. Fruit juice concentrates

39. Fruit juice crystals

40. Galactose

41. Glucitol

42. Glucoamine

43. Golden sugar

44. Golden syrup

45. Grape sugar

46. Hexitol

47. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)

48. Honey

49 Icing sugar

50. Inversol

51. Invert sugar

52. Isomalt

53. Liquid fructose

54. Lactose

55. Malts

56. Malt syrup

57. Malted barley

58. Maltodextrin

59. Maltosecarbitol

60. Mannitol

61. Maple syrup

62. Molasses

63. Muscovado sugar

64. Nectars

65. Panels sugar

66. Pancake syrup

67. Pentose

68. Raw sugar

69. Raisin syrup

70. Refiner’s syrup

71. Ribose rice syrup

72. Rice malt

73. Rice syrup

74. Rice syrup solids

75. Sorbitol

76. Sorghum

77. Sorghum syrup

78. Sucanat

79. Sucrose.

80. Sugar

81. Syrup

82. Sweetener

83. Treacle sugar

84. Turbinado sugar

85. White sugar

86. Yellow sugar

87. Zylose