Added sugar

Hi Drs.,

In order to make my protein smoothies taste a little better (the current whey that I have is quite bland), I have decided to add in some choco powder for more taste and this is something I plan on consuming at least 1x/day (2x at most).

That said, how much added sugar is too much on a daily basis?

TIA!

I wouldn’t really worry about this amount of sugar being anywhere close to “too much”, though a non-nutritive sweetener would likely work just fine.

Regarding how much is too much for added sugar, most guidelines recommend limiting Calories from added sugars to less than 5-10% of total daily energy intake. That doesn’t really make sense, as doing the math and calculating Calories from added sugar in a processed food probably isn’t a great behavior change target. Additionally, the added sugar isn’t really the problem at that level of intake. Rather, it’s the tendency to promote over consumption in foods with added sugars, not only when they’re > 5-10% energy content. Maybe just saying “avoid processed foods with added sugars, especially sugar sweetened beverages” would be better. shrug

Moving on. There is a tendency of consuming foods with lots of sugar to dilute the diet from a nutrient standpoint, e.g. increase risk of vitamin deficiency or similar. This seems to start ~ 15-20% of daily Calories from added sugar.

Hope that’s helpful.

-Jordan

1 Like