Sugar Awareness

Natural sugars are sugars found naturally occurring in foods.

Fruit
Vegetables
Plain dairy products
Nuts
Seeds
Grains

These do not count towards daily sugar intake and consumption does not need to be reduced as these foods provide nutrients.

Free sugars are sugars added to food and drinks, also called “added sugar”. These sugars are added during:

manufacturing processes
at home
in cooking
when foods are processed like juicing.

We need to reduce these sugars.

How much sugar should we be eating?

Use the colourful traffic light system to help identify high sugar products. Many processed foods have sugar in them. The higher sugar appears in the list of ingredients, the more sugar there is in the products.

Sugar in fruit

Fresh and frozen fruit have natural sugar. When fruits are processed and made into fruit juice or smoothies, most of the fibre and nutrients are lost and the sugar becomes “free”. It is much easier to have more sugar from juice than it is from eating the fruit in its whole form.

A similar process occurs when processing fruit to make smoothies and fruit pouches.

Limit dried fruit because even though the sugar content is the same as whole fruit, the sugar becomes sticky and stays on the teeth for longer. This can then increase the risk of tooth decay.