Most of us enjoy sweet stuff occasionally. But, if you’re trying to cut back, it’s really helpful to know the different names for sugar, otherwise you could end up eating much more than you expected.
Sugar is added to so many food products, and with such a large number of other names for ‘sugar,’ it can be really difficult to know what to look out for on the food label.
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- Barley malt
- Beet sugar
- Brown sugar
- Buttered syrup
- Cane juice crystals
- Cane sugar
- Caramel
- Corn syrup
- Corn syrup solids
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Carob syrup
- Castor sugar
- Date sugar
- Demerara sugar
- Dextran
- Dextrose
- Diastatic malt
- Diatase
- Ethyl maltol
- Fructose
- Fruit juice
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Galactose
- Glucose
- Glucose solids
- Golden sugar
- Golden syrup
- Grape sugar
- High-fructose corn syrup
- Honey
- Icing sugar
- Invert sugar
- Lactose
- Maltodextrin
- Maltose
- Malt syrup
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Muscovado sugar
- Panocha
- Raw sugar
- Refiner’s syrup
- Rice syrup
- Sorbitol
- Sorghum syrup
- Sucrose
- Sugar
- Treacle
- Turbinado sugar
- Yellow sugar
What other names for sugar can you think of?
Did you realise there were so many different terms used? It’s no wonder reading food labels can be confusing at times!
Note: After reading this, you may also be interested in How to Reduce Sugar Intake or discovering if there is such a thing as Healthy Sugar.
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
I had no idea there were that many names for sugar! thanks for posting this!
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Hi Danielle,
I didn’t realise there were so many alternatives either. While is not necessary to totally avoid sugar, it’s useful to know what to look out for.
then of course, there’s the actual product that some how fails to mention anything….i.e. do those chup-pop (?sp) things actually any writing about sugar….I often hear people saying that
xyz is OK ’cause it says nuthink! so therefore it must be Ok!
I suspect there are other ways not to say all those words….like a – bet-ween something……so we are lured into believing it must be better because they have attached a good-thing to the product :-)
Great list Mel – some of these are really sneaky, like the Ethyl maltol and Diatase
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An alternative name to “cane juice crystals” is “evaporated cane juice”.
E.g. sorbitol is a sugar alcohol (like its healthier cousin xylitol), not a sugar, strictly speaking.
Hi everyone,
Thanks for your comments.
One80 Fitness,
Thank you for adding more to the list, it seems we could go on for a long time yet adding to this. It’s really quite scary how many different forms of sugar there are out there!
Great list! the list is so long. a few more off the top of the head you might see on a package are:
Raisin syrup
Apple Sugar
Amasake
Barbados sugar
Carbitol
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One sugar substance I have discovered recently is sugar alcohol in so called sugar free candies. If you have any information about this sugar substance please let me know about it.
Hi Linda,
I found this article which you should find helpful in understanding what sugar alcohols are and what they do in the body.
Xanthan Gum is fermented corn sugar. Locust Bean Gum is a polysacharide made from the sugars galactos & mannose. Galactos is on the above list. Mannose is a hexose sugar monomer & I am unsure of the results when eaten.
Im in a program for food addiction. We abstain from ALL flour & sugar. The second we have anything with a trace of either, we get UNCONTRALABLE cravings. I had heard that a certain brand of ranch dressing is abstinate. Well, I was wrong! I couldnt imagine why I couldnt stop eating & obessing about it. Well here maltodextrin is the first ingredient… Just goes to prove that I need to stay away from anything with a ingredient list… For now on the only dressing I will be using is good ole olive oil & apple cider vinagar…
Hi Jennifer,
What do you cover/do in your program for food addiction?
Thanks for making this forum. I’m in 8th grade and doing a project on how much sugar is in the junk food we eat daily and this really helped! THANKS AGAIN!!
“We abstain from ALL flour & sugar. The second we have anything with a trace of either, we get UNCONTRALABLE cravings. I had heard that a certain brand of ranch dressing is abstinate. Well, I was wrong! I couldnt imagine why I couldnt stop eating & obessing about it.”
Are you sure that this is so?
an alternative to sugar is a plant called stevia, it is 300x sweeter than sugar. u can get it in powder form on line
It’s really amazing how much sugar is in just about everything you eat, buy at restaurants, canned food, and so on. Your list is excellent and further emphasizes the need to really watch sugar content before consuming foods. Eating sugar or any other food in moderation is the right thing to do but it is hard to do this when food sources contain so much sugar.
Very good post, important to raise awareness about this problem.
Yes, it really is amazing when you stop to take a look at the ingredients of processed foods. I guess the best thing to do is avoid most processed foods.
Agave is a slow release fructose syrup from the agave cactus. although not as bad as sugar, still a sugar derivitive. so if you are allergic to sugar or trying to obstain from it then add this to the list.
Thanks Hannah.
Rather instructive, look onward to coming back again.|
Very interesting. Many sneaky companies use these names to hide their sugar contents and deceive their customers. I had to do a double take on #40 because I believe the word is Mexican slang for a certain Lady part. I’m curious to find out the origin on this alternate word for sugar but afraid to look it up…
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