| Hey, Everyone. There's an internal saying that we have here at Primal Kitchen: "Sugar is Public Enemy #1." No matter what convention you're following – Primal, Keto, Paleo, Carnivore, Carniflex, Vegetarian, Vegan – we can all agree that sugar isn't good for us. So, you've decided to give up the white stuff. Great! That's a huge step considering how pervasive sugar is in our food supply. The normal progression is that you stop drinking sugary beverages, then you stop adding unnecessary sugar to things. After that you might start reading labels to find out what kinds of products sugar hides in. And that's where things get sticky. There are three main sugar claims that you may find on food labels: sugar-free, no sugar added, and unsweetened. It's a common misconception that they mean the same thing, but they're vastly different. I'll break it down here. Sugar-free When you see “sugar-free” on a product label, it means that the food contains less than a half of a gram of sugar per serving size. This includes any type of sugar that could be found in the food. Obviously, the white stuff counts toward the total. So does maple syrup and honey. Naturally-occurring sugars count too, like lactose in milk or fructose in fruits. Sugarless alternative sweeteners won’t contribute to the total sugar in a product. Those are allowed under a sugar-free label. The term “sugar-free” is regulated, so if an item says it’s sugar free, you can be pretty confident that it contains less than half a gram of sugar per serving. If you’re aiming to stay under that half a gram (or one gram, or whatever your limit is), you’ll want to watch your serving sizes. Some products have tiny serving sizes on the label, when typical consumption is much larger. It adds up. No Sugar Added “No sugar added” means that no sugar ingredients are added during the processing of foods, including sugars from syrups and honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices. That doesn't mean you end up with a product containing zero grams of sugar. For example, a banana could bear a “no sugar added” label, but it actually contains around 14g of naturally-occurring sugar. It also doesn't mean sweet foods with "no sugar added" are automatically suspect. Here's an example for you. At Primal Kitchen, we wanted to create a ham glaze that had a light, warm sweetness without using white sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, high-fructose corn syrup... the usual sweeteners you would find in a ham glaze. After lots of testing, we landed on pineapple juice, which added just the right amount of sweetness to balance a salty ham, without using ingredients that turn off our community of discerning shoppers. But, because the sweeteness comes from pineapple juice, we can't say it's no sugar added. Still a fantastic product. Unsweetened An unsweetened food is one that hasn’t been sweetened at all – no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, no natural sweeteners, no zero-calorie sweeteners, nothing that adds to the sweetness of the recipe. | 