What “No Added Sugar” Really Means

+ a recipe for Fruit and Nut Bars

What “No Added Sugar” Really Means

I get press releases for new products all the time, but this one really excited me: it was for canned baked beans with no added sugar. I love baked beans and I occasionally open a can of them for a quick side dish or vegetarian main. However, I usually need to add some apple cider vinegar and/or mustard to help balance their aggressive sweetness, so my hopes were high for this new product. I was imagining a more gently sweet baked bean, one that got its sweetness from whole fruit, perhaps pureed dates. Baked beans need to be sweetened somehow—that sweet-savory tang is what they are all about —but it didn’t say on the company’s press release or on their website what they were using as a sweetener. I finally got access to the ingredient list, and my hopes were quickly dashed.

Like many no-added-sugar products, theses beans contained an artificial sweetener. Artificial sweeteners have been in the press a lot lately with panic-inducing (aka clickbait) headlines about their potential dangers. I’ll get into that in a minute. But safety concerns were not the issue for me here— taste was. I have yet to meet artificial sweetener that doesn’t leave me with an unpleasant aftertaste, so I knew this product would not be for me. The experience got me thinking about the label term “no added sugar” and how easily it can be misconstrued. So I thought I’d provide some clarity on that here.

It Doesn’t Mean Unsweetened or Sugar-Free

You might think a label boasting “no added sugar” means the product is less sweet tasting. Even though I know better, that is my reflexive reaction, or maybe wishful thinking, every time I encounter it. But, as with the baked beans, that is not necessarily the case. No-added-sugar products can be sweetened with artificial and other calorie-free sweeteners, collectively known in the nutrition world as non-nutritive sweeteners.

You might also think that “no added sugar” means the food is completely sugar-free. Also, not necessarily true. Products with a “no added sugar” label may contain naturally occurring sugars from whole-food ingredients such as fruit, vegetables and dairy.  

What “No Added Sugar” Does Means

The term “no added sugar” on a food label means that no form of sugar has been added to the food as an ingredient. That includes table sugar, raw sugar, cane sugar, syrups (maple syrup, cane syrup, corn syrup,) honey, agave, concentrated fruit and vegetable juices, jam, jelly and other forms of sugar such as dextrose, fructose and sucrose.

As I mentioned, “added sugar” does not include naturally occurring sugars that are found in milk, fruits, and vegetables. This is an important and helpful distinction because sugars inherent in these health-protective foods are naturally “packaged” with fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and there is no need to avoid them. However, if you need to watch your blood sugar (like I do) it’s smart to take the total sugar and carbohydrate content of a “no added sugar” food into account.

Questions about Artificial Sweeteners

I have noticed that most “no added sugar” products lean heavily on artificial sweeteners, rather than on reducing sweet taste and relying on whole food ingredients (shocking, I know). Beside the flavor issue I have with artificial sweeteners, a couple of headline-making studies have come out recently which raise questions about their potential risks.

One study done at North Carolina State University found that a chemical occurring in trace amounts in sucralose, which is also formed when we digest the artificial sweetener, is “genotoxic,” meaning it breaks up DNA. This study was done in a lab, so we cannot extrapolate it to an effect in humans, but it does raise a question that needs to be explored with more research.

Another news-maker was a study done by Cleveland Clinic which found that people with high levels of erythritol in their blood had a greater risk of heart attack and stroke. Erythritol is a common artificial sweetener, but it is also something our bodies synthesize, and it is not clear from the study whether the higher risk the researchers identified had to do directly with the consumption of the sweetener, or if higher blood levels are a sign of underlying illness. Here too, more research needs to be done to come to any firm conclusions.

So there is no need to panic, but until we know more it is probably wise to use artificial sweeteners sparingly. Which brings me back to those “no added sugar” products….