I’ve been trying to figure out where people online have been coming up with this “less than 40g of sugar RDA” that I keep reading about. And I think I have finally found out what they were talking about.
It wasn’t the Food and Drug Administration that was suggesting 40g or less of sugar, it was the Department of Agriculture and some other health experts.
“In petitioning for labeling changes regarding sugar, CSPI, joined by dozens of leading health experts, also wants the FDA to set a maximum recommended daily intake (Daily Value) for added sugars of 10 teaspoons (40 grams) and require labels to disclose the percentage of the Daily Value a food provides.”
I also found out that they were not talking about natural sugars in products. They were talking about added sugars. As an example, an apple has 19g of sugar but would have zero added sugar. On the other hand a can of pop has about 41g of sugar but all of it is added sugar. So with 1 can of pop you are over your suggested RDA of added sugar.
The problem is that I I have not yet found a food label that distinguishes between added sugar and naturally occuring sugar.
Q: How much sugar is in a slightly heaping teaspoon?
A: About 7.5 grams. There are 4 grams in a non-heaping teaspoon and 12.5 grams of sugar in a tablespoon.
Sugar Free Cakes and Cookies – that help you lose weight healthily!
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Thanks for posting this very helpful information; I happened to come to your blog just searching around the web. Please keep up the good work!
Your blog comes up as a top hit for “rda for sugar”. I had just come to the same conclusions as you did when I ran across your blog post. It was nice to get a confirmation of my thinking. I was trying to figure this out because I’ve been tracking my food intake at MyFitnessPal.com (I’m not affiliated with this site, but it’s a great, free way to track your food and exercise) and it told me that I was consuming way too much sugar. But they’re using 40 g/day for men as the total sugar to consume, not the added sugar.
It seems like if you eat any quantity of fruit, you would go over 40g. I know the smoothie I make in the mornings has a bunch of natural sugars. I make it with milk, OJ, strawberries, bananas, pineapple and blueberries so it has a high sugar content. That’s what made me research the 40g number I kept finding all over the place. And I don’t think anyone would say that an all natural smoothie is unhealthy
Thanks for commenting!
2 cups of no fat milk has 24g of sugar. 1 medium banana contains 14g. So after I consume these 280 calories, I’m supposed to eat cardboard?
The banana has 0g of added sugar and if that 24g of sugar in the milk is lactose, then it isn’t added either. Now if the producer of the milk is adding sugar to it then you could count that sugar but you would have to figure out how much was added and how much was naturally in the milk.
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