Hidden Sugar and its Many Aliases
Australian labelling of added sugars
In Australia, the total amount of sugars in a product is listed in the NIP, but it doesn’t differentiate sugars that have been added by the manufacturer (including honey, syrups and fruit juices) from those that are intrinsic to the food (such as lactose in milk). Currently the only way to tell that sugars have been added is by checking the ingredients list – the higher up the list, the more sugar the product contains.
But when added sugars can hide behind 40+ different names you may still be none the wiser.
One of the key recommendations to come out of the government’s 2011 food labelling review was that where sugars are added as separate ingredients in a food, the term ‘added sugars’ be used in the ingredient list as the generic term, followed by a bracketed list with further details. For example: added sugars (fructose, glucose syrup, honey). We think it’s a step in the right direction towards helping consumers make informed choices about the foods they buy.
The many names for sugar
- Agave nectar/syrup
- Barley malt
- Beet sugar
- Blackstrap molasses
- Brown sugar
- Cane sugar
- Carob syrup
- Caster sugar
- Coconut sugar
- Coffee sugar crystals
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Corn syrup
- Date sugar/syrup
- Demerara
- Dextrose
- Evaporated cane juice
- Fructose
- Fruit juice
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Glucose
- Golden syrup
- Grape sugar/syrup
- High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
- Honey
- Icing sugar
- Invert sugar
- Lactose
- Malt
- Maltose
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Muscovado
- Palm sugar
- Panela
- Powdered sugar
- Rapadura
- Raw sugar
- Rice syrup
- Sucrose
- Sugar
- Treacle
- Turbinado
- White sugar
Article sourced from Choice.