Sugar in everything?

[Katana_Geldar]

A recent thread made me wonder how prevalent sugar is in US foods, even in salads. How prevalent is sugar in the US in food?

How likely is it I will be ale to get my u sweetened, unflavoured, unthickened yoghurt that I love in the US? On a Royal Carribean ship where we went for our honeymoon, there were quite a few US foods and no yoghurt that I liked. Just skim milk with corn and tapioca.

[Yvaine]

There are a lot of things with hidden sugars and such, but yogurt is actually hugely in fashion and there's every possible variety available. Including plain.

[that_one_girl]

VERY ... usually in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup
not very likely, but there IS hope ...
1. you can try yogurt (no 'h' in the US, I believe, or maybe I've been spelling it wrong my whole life) that is marked as 'greek' or 'plain' and look in the ingredients list to see if sugar is present.  Make sure to try different brands, as one brand's idea of 'greek' may not be the same as another's.
2. depending on where you are, i.e. if you are in a big city, you can sometimes find markets that import 'exotic' things ... also check the international aisle in the supermarkets, you can sometimes get lucky there.

[camlan]

A lot of processed food has added sugar. If you stick to "ingredients" and avoid the prepared stuff, you'll be fine.

Plain yogurt is easy to find. However, you do need to read the labels to determine if pectin or other thickeners have been added--some brands add this to their non-fat or low-fat yogurt. But any average supermarket should have what you are looking for. Also, you may not be able to find plain yogurt in the small 6 oz. containers--not all brands make a small size plain yogurt. But I can always find plain yogurt in the larger 32 oz. containers. It's the only kind of yogurt I buy, so I know it's out there, at least in New England.

[PastryGoddess]

A recent thread made me wonder how prevalent sugar is in US foods, even in salads. How prevalent is sugar in the US in food?

How likely is it I will be ale to get my u sweetened, unflavoured, unthickened yoghurt that I love in the US? On a Royal Carribean ship where we went for our honeymoon, there were quite a few US foods and no yoghurt that I liked. Just skim milk with corn and tapioca.

Processed food has lots of hidden sugars, and cruise ships are not indicative at all of how most americans eat. 

I live in a major city, so my food choices are a bit more varied.  Plain yogurt is available in most grocery stores and is pretty easy to find.  However, I don't know if it comes in the small individual containers as I usually buy it in large 32oz containers.  I'd assume that either Chobani or Oikos would sell them that way if they did.


Most americans don't cook with sugar or add it to typically savory things.  For example, we don't add sugar to a tuna or chicken salad.  And we definitely wouldn't add it to a green salad.  You may have seen a reference to a jello salad, which is in a whole 'nother category by itself and does have sugar added to the jello.  We also don't just add sugar to things

[Slartibartfast]

Easier to find non-sugar versions of supermarket foods (i.e. things you make yourself) - anything from a fast food place is likely to have sugar in it.  That includes salads and french fries    Restaurants load up the sugar and fat and salt, too, because it makes their food taste better!  I try to avoid artificial sweeteners, and it's tough - even non-sweet things often have either sugar or a substitute.

[Coruscation]

A recent thread made me wonder how prevalent sugar is in US foods, even in salads. How prevalent is sugar in the US in food?

How likely is it I will be ale to get my u sweetened, unflavoured, unthickened yoghurt that I love in the US? On a Royal Carribean ship where we went for our honeymoon, there were quite a few US foods and no yoghurt that I liked. Just skim milk with corn and tapioca.

Processed food has lots of hidden sugars, and cruise ships are not indicative at all of how most americans eat. 

I live in a major city, so my food choices are a bit more varied.  Plain yogurt is available in most grocery stores and is pretty easy to find.  However, I don't know if it comes in the small individual containers as I usually buy it in large 32oz containers.  I'd assume that either Chobani or Oikos would sell them that way if they did.


Most americans don't cook with sugar or add it to typically savory things.  For example, we don't add sugar to a tuna or chicken salad.  And we definitely wouldn't add it to a green salad.  You may have seen a reference to a jello salad, which is in a whole 'nother category by itself and does have sugar added to the jello.  We also don't just add sugar to things

As an Australian, I found US bread to be quite a bit sweeter than the Australian variety, as is pizza dough. So, you might not add it while cooking but the manufacturers do.

Also, I can attest, after being on a sugar free diet that even Australian salad dressings contain sugar, so I'm sure that American ones do to.

[WillyNilly]

Like others have said, processed foods do tend to all have sugar (usually in the form of high fructose corn syrup, but also as "sugar", "evaporated cane syrup", "rice syrup", etc). But plain yogurt is ridiculously easy to find. In NYC not only an you find this in any grocery store, but also most delis and even in drug stores.

For items like bread, in the grocery store, just read labels - I regularly buy bread without sugar added without a problem. In a restaurant? Its going to be sweetened. Most salad dressings are sweetened too, but just about any restaurant will offer the option of "oil & vinegar", which is just plain oil and vinegar, no added sugar.

[Hmmmmm]

Americans do enjoy a sweater diet than most countries.

I can imagine you didn't find plain yogurt on a ship. Most single serve yogurts are flavored and sweetened. But you can find plain yogurt,but probably not in a hotel or ship buffet.

Sugar is common in breads as it gives the yeast something to eat.

Commercial salad dressings are going to have a sweetener added in most cases. Even a lot of recipes will have sugar as an ingredient. But you can always ask for vinegar and oil only.

[Katana_Geldar]

With the yoghurt it wasn't that u couldn't find unflavoured, I did. It was just plain yoghurt, not natural which was skim milk with thickners.

And yes, it's surprising the things that contain sugar. I do like sweet things, but you do need a break now and then.

[Rohanna]

A recent thread made me wonder how prevalent sugar is in US foods, even in salads. How prevalent is sugar in the US in food?

How likely is it I will be ale to get my u sweetened, unflavoured, unthickened yoghurt that I love in the US? On a Royal Carribean ship where we went for our honeymoon, there were quite a few US foods and no yoghurt that I liked. Just skim milk with corn and tapioca.

Processed food has lots of hidden sugars, and cruise ships are not indicative at all of how most americans eat. 

I live in a major city, so my food choices are a bit more varied.  Plain yogurt is available in most grocery stores and is pretty easy to find.  However, I don't know if it comes in the small individual containers as I usually buy it in large 32oz containers.  I'd assume that either Chobani or Oikos would sell them that way if they did.


Most americans don't cook with sugar or add it to typically savory things.  For example, we don't add sugar to a tuna or chicken salad.  And we definitely wouldn't add it to a green salad.  You may have seen a reference to a jello salad, which is in a whole 'nother category by itself and does have sugar added to the jello.  We also don't just add sugar to things

As an Australian, I found US bread to be quite a bit sweeter than the Australian variety, as is pizza dough. So, you might not add it while cooking but the manufacturers do.

Also, I can attest, after being on a sugar free diet that even Australian salad dressings contain sugar, so I'm sure that American ones do to.

"Fat Free" dressings are one to watch for, because they typically replace the fat with sugar to fix the taste.

[ladyknight1]

Any low-fat or fat free item is going to have some sweetener in it.

I buy Fage Greek yogurt plain in a 8 oz size container. It is delicious and I eat it with fruit and granola for breakfast. I also bake with yogurt a great deal, as it makes my baked goods moist and replaces the oil or butter.

Many non-vinaigrette salad dressings contain sugar.

[PastryGoddess]

Just FYI, sugar's suffix is -ose.  So when you are looking at ingredients, if you see something you don't recognize with an -ose at the end, it's a sugar.  so fructose, sucrose, dextrose, etc.  All of those ingredients will break down to glucose eventually

[CakeBeret]

Pretty much everything premade has sugar in it. You'll find sugar in places such as bottled salad dressings, canned soups, mayonnaise, seasoning or soup-mix packets, pasta sauces, and so on. The worst offenders, I find, are wheat bread (packed with sugar to offset the heavy wheat flavor) and anything labelled fat-free (a metric ton of sugar is added to mask the lack of fat).

[Pen^2]

Chemically, there are many types of sugar. They all have varying degrees of sweetness (e.g. fructose vs glucose), and all contain calories, of course. But because the people who make laws don't always have knowledge in the topics their laws deal with, officially, only a few of the types of sugar actually have to be listed in the ingredients as 'sugar'. The rest don't have to be named specifically, and can be included under the general heading of 'additives', 'flavours', etc. So 16g of sugar doesn't cover all the sugar, just some of it. There could actually be 16.1g or 900g.

A lot of things have plenty of added sugar in this way without needing to add it to their label. I first discovered this when I happened to have a can of soft drink from Japan and another of the same brand from the USA, and they tasted very different in terms of sweetness, despite the labels claiming they had exactly the same ingredients and the same amount of sugar.