Top 10 Foods With Highest Amounts of Sugar

Although we could easily start the list off with BBQ sauce, it’s this popular condiment that we couldn’t live without - on burgers, hot dogs, fries, you name it. Its origin goes back to a 17th century Chinese table sauce made from pickled fish and spices; after the West caught on, it eventually became tomato-based. But the ingredients have become a lot less healthy. So be alert before you squirt; a tablespoon-size amount of ketchup has 4 grams of sugar, more than your regular chocolate chip cookie! Believe it or not, sugar makes up almost a quarter of what’s inside a ketchup bottle, hardly a healthy addition to your daily lunch.

According to the American Heart Association, men should restrict their sugar intake to 36 grams of added sugar or less a day, while women should have no more than 25. While that may seem reasonable enough, few would imagine that reaching for a tasty yogurt could put them close to or even above the daily recommended limit. However, for consumers of flavoured yogurt, what seems to be a healthy snack could actually be worse for you than a Twinkie. While a Twinkie contains 19 grams of sugar, a typical cup of Activia, Yoplait, or Dannon could have the same amount, or more!

It may be the most deceptive entry on our list. We’ve all grown up knowing that we have to eat a portion of fruit and vegetables a day, but it’s always better to have a piece of fresh fruit than to dive into the canned stuff. A typical can contains about 20 grams of sugar, and cans that are packed with heavy syrup as opposed to juice can be even worse. The syrup usually contains a ton of corn syrup and sugar, which will add about 200 calories to the intake of fruit.

You’ve finally decided to have a healthy lunch. At the counter of your neighbourhood fast-food restaurant, you opt for the salad. Before you give yourself a congratulatory slap on the back, however, be aware of the sugar content of the salad dressing you may be reaching for. In addition to dousing your nutritious garden salad with extra calories, sodium, saturated fats, and preservatives, the amount of sugar may shock you. Two tablespoons of an average Catalina dressing, for instance, could have between 5 and 10 grams of sugar. Try experimenting with olive oil, vinegar, and other healthy alternatives instead.

While we could have easily put granola cereals or protein bars in this entry, it’s granola bars that may just be the most popular and misleading. Often advertised as healthy choices due to their fruit and fibre, they can also contain huge helpings of sugar, depending on the brand. A peanut butter Nature Valley bar packs in 11 grams of sugar, about the same as a chocolate-coated Quaker Chewy Dipps Bar, which clocks in at 12 grams. That’s about three teaspoons of sugar! At that rate, might as well just make your own trail mix.

Breakfast is often described as the most important meal of the day. So it’s good to know just what exactly is inside our daily bowl of crunchy goodness. Unfortunately for a lot of cereal, the answer is a resounding SUGAR, and lots of it. Cereals like Corn Pops, Fruit Loops, and Lucky Charms are made up over 40% sugar. If that isn’t sweet enough for you, then you might enjoy a bowl of Golden Crisp, which is over 50% sugar. The most sugary of them all, however, is Honey Smacks, launched in 1953 and containing a shocking 56% sugar.

It’s hard to deny yourself a cookie when you’re craving something sweet, but moderation is definitely a wise choice. Depending on the type of cookie, indulging on a regular basis could increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease. Stuffing your face with a couple of Oreos will add 8 grams of sugar to your digestive system . . . and let’s face it, who ever eats only three? Throw in a handful of Chips Ahoy cookies, and you’ve got another 22.5 grams. But before you go thinking that’s a lot, be aware that a single Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream Pie contains 12 grams of sugar; their double-deckers reach 41!

A bar that traditionally contains chocolate as well as some form of nuts, fruit, caramel, wafer, or other delicious addition, these are unsurprisingly high up on our list. As you may well have expected, some are much more sugary than others. An Oh Henry! bar will give you 26 grams of sugar, a Snickers Almond Bar 27, and a Baby Ruth 32. A Milky Way manages to make an Oh Henry! bar look like a salad however, packing in 35 grams of sugar! That’s the equivalent of almost three tablespoons of sugar, or over 8 teaspoons!

Sorry ladies and gentlemen, but it should be no surprise that this creamy delight lands precariously near the top of our list. While the Persians are usually credited with inventing a form of frozen dessert approximately 2500 years ago, you can be sure that things have taken a turn in the nutrition department since then. A medium vanilla ice cream cone at Dairy Queen has about 36 grams of sugar, and once you up the size and add toppings . . . oh boy. A large Blizzard can hit you with between 150 and 180 grams!

Was there ever any doubt? Unlike a lot of the other entries on our list, the candy we’re referring to are essentially JUST sugar without even a smidge of nutritional benefit. In other words, there is no healthy excuse you could possibly muster for stocking up on those sugary demons. For instance, a mini box of Strawberry Nerds contains 11 grams of sugar, the same amount as a fun-size package of Skittles. Just 6 Starburst candies contain 16 grams of sugar, and 5 Tootsie rolls contain 17 grams of sugar - as do two mini packages of M&Ms. Despite the small size, don’t forget that these sweet munchies pack a mean punch in the sugar department.





TRIVIA

Yoplait’s brand of Yoptimal Lactose-Free Strawberry yogurt contains 25 grams of sugar per what portion of the cup?
1/4
2/4
3/4 (TRUE)
1 cup

A blueberry muffin generally contains around how many grams of sugar?
5
15
25
35 (true)

A package of Quaker Real Medleys Oatmeal Apple Walnut contains a whopping 32 grams of sugar. (false)