8 Healthy Foods that Contain More Sugar than Candy

There are tons of healthy foods that we consume without giving a second thought about the sugar levels. All packaged food contains sugar and so it’s almost impossible to get food free from sugar.

Consuming sugar in your food is not a crime. But we have to take care to consume sugar in the form of natural sweetened foods and not opt to eat food that has food with added sugars.

So here are a few foods that are considered healthy but as a matter of fact contain too much added sugars:

• Granola bars

Most of us pop a number of granola bars in the morning when we are too rushed to have a decent wholesome breakfast.

But what we don’t know is that granola bars contain a lot of added sugars, even if they don’t contain chocolate. Try to find granola bars that use natural sweeteners like honey or fruit.

• Cereal

We often switch from fattening foods at breakfast to cereals. Cereal taste better as a dieting option because we don’t know the added sugars in it.

And when we top it up with milk, the natural sugars in the milk make the whole meal as very sweet one. Try to buy cereals with no added sugars in them.

• Fat-free flavored yogurt

When they claim to remove all the fat, they also add stuff to make it taste good. Of course they add sugar to sweeten it and even the fruity pulp you find at the bottom of some flavored yogurts don’t come naturally sweetened the way they are.

Select brands that come with less added sugar and contain natural sweetening agents like fruit or honey.

• Canned tomato soup

All tomato canned soup contains added sugar which happens to be everybody’s favorite. Naturally made homemade soups are sweet because of the sweet juicy tomatoes that it is made of.

But not all canned varieties are made of the best tomatoes so to enhance the flavor of the low quality produce that is it made of; added sugars are put in to sweeten it. So try to avoid soups cans that specifically state sugar as an ingredient on the can.

• Soy milk

Milk other than that of cows tends to be processed and contain more preservatives and added sugars. As a matter of fact, the ones that come with fancy flavors contain the maximum added sugars.

• Dry fruit

We all know that dry fruit is healthy for us. But when we eat them as dry fruit, all the water content is lost making the sugars more concentrated. Try to eat more fresh fruits.

• Vitamin water

If you’re looking to fill up on drinks other than water and cola then vitamin water is usually what we turn to. But what we don’t realize is that vitamin water is nothing but empty calories that give us neither fiber nor nutrition.

So try to keep drinking vitamin water to a minimum unless you want to add on extra empty calories that won’t keep you full.

• Instant oatmeal

Instant oatmeal contains a lot of added sugar, as a matter of fact more than the, ‘actually sweetened varieties’. Of course the sound of strawberry and apple oats sounds healthy but trust me, the sugar is not coming from the strawberries or the apple.

Steer clear of all oatmeal varieties that contain added sugar. Instead buy regular plain old oats and add berries or fruits according to your taste.

So don’t be fooled by these so called ‘healthy foods’. Research the contents of all the food that you eat before you simply dump them into your stomach.

Written by: Rasha Ashraf