It is recommended that an adult consumes no more than 6 added teaspoons of sugar each day.
It is recommended that a preschool aged child consumes no more than 4 teaspoons of added sugar each day.
Below preschool age (approximately 2 years) it is not recommended that your little one consumes any added sugar. This is because they are growing so rapidly and they require all foods to be incredibly nutrient dense to ensure they obtain all necessary vitamins and minerals.
However, in saying this, just do your best. It is extremely difficult to avoid sugar and processed snacks these days, especially while out and about, at parties, with other people, etc.
First, I would recommend baking your own snacks if possible. This way you know how much sugar is added and the type of sugar.
If purchasing packaged snacks, I recommend referring to the 100g column against sugar, if the product has below 5g sugar then it is probably a fairly low sugar option (for a packaged food).
To calculate total sugar in a packaged food all you need to know is that 4 grams of sugar equals 1 teaspoon. You can look at how many grams of sugar is in a serve and calculate the number of teaspoons from that. Remember to check that only 1 serve was consumed (sometimes it's 30g, sometimes 1 bar, sometimes 5 cookies, etc - it changes!).
This article was written by HNK nutritionist and mum, Emily.
What is added sugar?
Added sugar is any sweetener added to a product. Added sugar does not refer to naturally occurring sugar in fruit, vegetables, dairy products to name a few. It can be tricky to identify added sugars as there are around 60 names for sugar used by manufacturers!
WHOLE FRUIT is not an added sugar and does not count towards the recommended intake of sugar per day.
Here are some of the more common names for added sugar:
- Beet sugar
- Brown sugar
- Buttered syrup
- Cane juice
- Cane sugar
- Caramel
- Corn syrup
- Corn syrup solids
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Castor sugar
- Date sugar
- Dehydrated cane juice
- Dextran
- Dextrose
- Fructose
- Fruit juice
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Galactose
- Glucose
- Glucose solids
- Golden syrup
- Granulated sugar
- Grape sugar
- High fructose corn syrup
- Honey
- Icing sugar
- Invert sugar
- Lactose
- Malt
- Maltodextrin
- Maltose
- Malt syrup
- Mannitol
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Powdered sugar
- Raw sugar
- Refiner’s syrup
- Rice syrup
- Sucrose
- Treacle
(source: https://www.cityline.tv/2017/06/14/56-names-sugars-havent-heard/)
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