What are common terms used to describe sugar in food items?
Sugar can be called cane sugar, honey, maltose, malt dextrin, glucose, corn syrup, fructose, dextrose, sucrose or high fructose corn syrup?
How man grams in a teaspoon of sugar?
A teaspoon of sugar = 4g
Is brown sugar better than white sugar?
Sugar contains no nutritional value, therefore it adds nothing to our meals except sweetness and energy.
So, brown or white sugar, is sugar.
Eating too much sugar causes Type 2 diabetes?
No, diabetes is a chronic condition associated with abnormally high levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood. Insulin produced by the pancreas lowers blood glucose.
Absence or insufficient production of insulin, or an inability of the body to properly use insulin causes diabetes
What do I need to know about sugar in the food I buy?
Terms such as ‘sugar-free’, ‘reduced sugar’, ‘low in sugar’ and ‘no sugar added’ can create confusion while offering no understanding of what they really mean. The new draft legislation stipulated the claim sugar free to be substantiated with the product containing less than ½ g sugar per 100ml product. No further recommendations are made towards evaluating foods towards their sugar content. Not all manufacturers analyze products for their sugar content either. According to the Council of the European Union regulation of 2006 a products are low in sugar of the product contains no more than 5 g sugars per 100g solids or 2.5 g of sugars per 100 ml liquids. As most breakfast cereals contain more than this we recommend you to use the upper limit of 12.5 g sugar for breakfast cereals as recommended by the UK food Standards Agency
How much sugar is in my food items? Examples;
| Product | Qty | Sugar (g/tsp) |
| Sweets, gums, marshmallows | 100g | 90 (18) |
| Cookies, Commercial, With Filling | 100g | 73 (15) |
| Chocolate, Milk / Dark | 100g | 65 (13) |
| All fruit Juice, Liquifruit/ Ceres | 340ml | 45 (9) |
| Cold Drink, Carbonated, Average (e.g. Coke, Cream Soda, Ice tea) | 340ml | 35 (7) |
| Sugar based cordial e.g. Oros/ Energade | 340ml | 25 (5) |
| Flavoured / mineral waters | 500ml | 25 (5) |
Yours in health,
Mbali
