The Many Different Names For Sugar

Know what has more names than a member of the Wu-Tang Clan?

Yup, sugar!

If you look on the ingredients list of a packaged food or beverage and don’t see “sugar” anywhere, that doesn’t mean the product is sugar-free. In more cases than not, the sugar is just under a different name.

So how many different names are there for sugar that you need to be aware of in your quest to get no more than 10 percent of your daily calories from sugar that’s added during the manufacturing process rather than naturally occurring in a food?¹Natural sugars include fructose, lactose, and maltose. Fructose is found in fruits and vegetables, lactose is in milk, and maltose is common in grains.

Well, excluding artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes, the list I’ve compiled contains 146 different names for sugar that you should be on the lookout for.²Yes, you are indeed correct that my putting together this list is a clear sign that I have nothing going on my life!

Now, why should you be aware of sugar’s many names and work to cut down on it?

Other than the fact that too much sugar can ruin your teeth, you should reduce your intake of it from added sweeteners because when sugar is used as an ingredient, it contributes to weight gain and excess body fat in several ways. One is that naturally-occurring carbohydrates and man-made sugar alcohols that are added to food not only have calories but they can also raise blood glucose levels. When elevated long enough, high blood sugar can lead to insulin and leptin resistance, which can result in obesity, as well as the adverse health effects associated with that condition.³It’s for the reason that artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes contain few to no calories and don’t raise blood glucose levels that they’re excluded from the list. These artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes include Acesulfame potassium (Sunett® and Sweet One®), Aspartame (Equal®, NutraSweet®, Sugar Twin®), Neotame (Newtame™), Saccharin (Sweet ‘N Low®, Necta Sweet®, Sweet Twin®), Sucralose (Splenda™), and Advantame. Other low-calorie sweeteners that don’t affect blood glucose that are also left off the list are steviol glycosides (Truvia® and PureVia®) and luo han guo, or Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle fruit extract (SGFE), which comes from monk fruit.

As for why no such health risk is associated with sugar that’s naturally present in food, it has to do with fruits, vegetables, and grains being rich in fiber, a nutrient that slows the breakdown of sugar and its entry into the bloodstream. Processed items with added sugar are often devoid of this nutrient. With regard to lactose in dairy, when that sugar is broken down by the enzyme lactase into the smaller molecules glucose and galactose, the fat and protein content helps the converted sugar enter the bloodstream slowly and steadily, which doesn’t bring about as rapid a spike in blood glucose levels. Another way that added sugar is fattening is that it activates certain parts of the brain that are responsible for pleasure and reward, which can then increase cravings for more sweet food and cause you to overeat.⁴By being 200 to as much as 20,000 times sweeter than sugar and providing a sweet taste without calories, there’s belief that artificial sweeteners may have the same effect of increasing cravings, especially in those who are obese. The findings from human studies are mixed, however.

Different Names For Sugar:

*Sugar alcohol, or polyol, that has a chemical structure consisting of both a sugar molecule and alcohol molecule. These hybrids are found naturally in certain fruits and vegetables but are usually man-made and added to processed foods as sweeteners and bulking agents. They’re about 25 to 100 percent as sweet as table sugar but are slightly lower in calories. Additionally, they don’t promote tooth decay and have less of an impact on blood glucose than real sugar.

Glossary: calories, dietary fat