Calorie counter beware: Sugar's everywhere

Sugar has been blamed for a laundry list of health problems, including obesity and diabetes. But how do you know when you've had too much?

For the first time, Americans now have a benchmark: No more than 25 grams of added sugar a day for women and 37.5 grams for men, according to new guidelines established by the American Heart Association.

It's easy to blow through those limits. Downing just one 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola will give you 39 grams of sugar, exceeding your daily ration. But a lesser-known problem with sugar is that it's hidden in foods from soup to nuts. It's lurking in your lunch meat. It enhances bread. And if a low-fat product or frozen dinner tastes good, you may have added sugar to thank.

As a result, we're regularly ingesting an average of 88.8 grams of added sugar a day, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey - more than three times what the AHA recommends.

"When you really start paying attention to ingredients, you realize that sugar is everywhere," said New Jersey's Jen Maidenberg, 35, who has monitored her sugar intake for more than a decade to help treat allergies, asthma, and irritable bowel syndrome. Among her pet peeves: "It kills me that Activia yogurt professes to boost your gut flora with probiotics, but then fills its yogurt with high amounts of sugar, defeating the purpose," she said.

Flooding your body with sugar often results in a blood-sugar high - followed by a crash. Excess sugar intake has also been linked to inflammation, which can trigger a cascade of poor health conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.

But there's no recommended daily allowance for sugar because the body doesn't need it. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines vaguely advise us to "choose added sugars in moderation."

The AHA, however, felt that consumers needed a specific target, said Rachel Johnson, lead author of the guidelines and professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont. The guidelines, released in September 2009, were developed after considering the number of discretionary calories a typical American has left after fulfilling all nutritional requirements. So, a more active person would have more discretionary calories, said Johnson.

Of course, sugar occurs naturally in foods - lactose in milk and fructose in fruit, for instance. These natural sugars are less alarming because they're accompanied by nutrients. But nutrition labels don't distinguish between natural and added sugars, which are those used during processing. The guidelines address only added sugars.

That means it's important to look for sugar - and its euphemisms - in the ingredient list, said Karin Hosenfeld, a registered dietitian in Texas. "If a food contains sugar or a simple carbohydrate derivative such as cane juice or high fructose corn syrup as one of the top three ingredients, and has no other redeeming nutritional value, then it's not a healthy choice," she said.

Watch for words ending in "-ose," such as lactose or maltose; those are simply chemical names for sugar. Brown rice syrup, molasses, raw sugar, and evaporated cane juice may sound healthy, but "a calorie is a calorie," said Johnson. "Molasses or raw sugar still has 4 calories per gram, like any other sugar," said Johnson.

In addition to making foods sweeter, sugar is used to maintain color, texture, and flavor, said Sean O'Keefe, a professor in the department of food science and technology at Virginia Tech.

Here are some of the unexpected places it pops up, with some specific product examples (sugar measurements given for typical serving sizes):

Breads and crackers. Sugar can help smooth and balance the flavor, said O'Keefe, who is also a spokesman for the Institute of Food Technologists. "Adding sugar to bread is one way of ensuring it rises properly before baking."

Pepperidge Farm Plain Bagels: 10 grams per bagel

Smart Start's "Original Antioxidants" cereal: 14 grams per cup. (Of note: Sugar is mentioned 14 times in various forms in the ingredient list.)

Cereal bars and granola. Sugar is added to help with taste, and texture and to lower the water content, increasing the bars' shelf life, O'Keefe said.

Quaker Natural Granola Oats Honey and Raisins: 30 grams per cup

Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars: 13 grams per bar

Tomato-based products. Sugar is used to give tomatoes the optimal sugar-acid balance and improve flavor if they're picked before they ripen. Tomatoes naturally have about 5 grams of sugar. Anything over that is likely added.

Ketchup: 4 grams per tablespoon

Peanut butter. Dextrose is added for taste and to stabilize emulsion, O'Keefe said.

Skippy Natural Super Chunk: 3 grams per 2 tablespoons

Dairy. Sugar is added for taste. Plain yogurt has about 12 grams of natural sugar; flavored can have up to 35 grams.

Horizon Organic fat-free vanilla: 24 grams per 6-ounce container

Shelf-stable meals, canned soups, and frozen dinners. Virtually any packaged meal will have added sugar to help improve taste. Look for meals with less than 5 grams of added sugar.

Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers Sesame Teriyaki Chicken, 15 grams per serving

Weight Watchers Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine: 12 grams per serving