Shocking: Sugar Content of Common Food Products
Apr-10-2010

Refined sugars and high-fructose corn syrup are considered by many experts to be the biggest contributors to obesity and poor health in Western civilization.

In her book What To Eat, Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at NYU and blogger at Food Politics suggests that any food that contains more than 15 grams of sugar per serving is closer to dessert than anything else. Though this number is arbitrary, it is a good benchmark for evaluating food products.

Obviously sugar content is not the only factor in a food's nutritional value (and not all of these have added sugar), but it can be illuminating to see the relative amounts in the foods we consume.

Just for fun I looked up the sugar content of a few common foods and menu items. I hope you're as horrified as I am.

Listed values are as close to a normal serving as I could approximate. Units are listed as grams of sugar.


Sugar Content of Common Food Products

1. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut ..................................................10 g

2. Luna Bar berry almond .......................................................................11 g

3. Froot Loops breakfast cereal 3/4 cup ............................................................12 g

4. Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream ..............................................................16 g

5. Starbucks caff� latte grande 16 oz ..............................................................17 g

6. Godiva 2 truffles ..............................................................................17 g

7. Subway 6″ sweet onion teriyaki chicken sandwich .....................................17 g

8. Ms. Field's chocolate chip cookie ................................................................19 g

9. Tropicana 100% orange juice 8 oz ..............................................................25 g

10. Yoplait original yogurt .....................................................................27 g

11. Craisins dried cranberries 1/3 cup .........................................................29 g

12. Vitamin Water 20 oz bottle .................................................................33 g

13. Oscar Mayer Lunchables crackers, turkey & American cheese ...................36 g

14. Coca-Cola Classic 12 oz can .....................................................................39 g

15. Sprinkles Cupcake red velvet ..................................................................45 g

16. California Pizza Kitchen Thai chicken salad ..............................................45 g

17. Jamba Juice blackberry bliss 16 oz .........................................................49 g

18. Odwalla SuperFood 450 ml bottle .........................................................50 g

19. Starbucks caffe vanilla frappuccino grande 16 oz ..................................58 g

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