Red means high. Yellow means okay to eat occasionally. Green means low and is the healthiest of the three.
We all know that sweets, pastries and carbohydrates have high glycemic indices. However, there are foods that we think are healthy, but actually contain loads of sugars. There are also foods that do not taste sweet at all, but be careful when consuming them because they have high sugar content. For those who are suffering from diabetes, you might be wondering why your blood sugar is constantly high. A combination of these foods might be the culprit.
1. Salad Dressing
You think eating garden salad is healthy? It actually depends on the type of salad dressing used. Most salad dressings contain 15 grams of sugar per serving. Even the fat-free versions are also packed with sugar to compensate for the flavor. For instance, Ken’s Steakhouse’s Fat Free Raspberry Pecan contain 10 grams per serving.
2. Sauces
Spaghetti sauce contains almost two tablespoons of sugar per serving. Tomato sauce can have as much as 80 grams of sugar in one jar. Barbecue sauce has as much as 35 grams of sugar per 100 gram serving. Some versions of garlic sauce like the honey garlic is also packed with sugar.
3. Sports Drinks
Sports drinks are known to contain minerals needed to replenish those lost when sweating. However, avid sports drinkers should go easy on chugging them down. Gatorade contains 21 grams of sugar in a bottle while Vitamin Water contains 33 grams. That is more or less a day’s worth of sugar required.
4. Frozen Dinners
Frozen dinners look harmless at all; well, at least in the sugar department. But did you know that most of these frozen treats (especially those with sauces) contain high amounts of sugar? For instance, Lean Cuisine’s Grilled Chicken and Penne Pasta contains 24 grams of sugar per serving.
5. Canned Beans
Canned baked beans also contain large amounts of sugar. For instance, B & M Barbecue Baked Beans has 19 grams of sugar in a 131 gram can. Meanwhile, Bush’s Original Baked Beans contain 12 grams of sugar in a 130 gram can.
6. Ketchup
Ketchup is also loaded with sugars. Based on the USDA database for standard reference, a 100 gram serving of ketchup contains 22 grams of sugar. That’s about half a teaspoon of sugar in one tablespoon of ketchup.
7. Granola Bars
Many people know this product as a healthy energy bar. Granola is indeed healthy, but packaged ones such as the Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bar contains as much as 12 grams per serving. It seems like products that are marketed as healthy are sometimes not what they seem.
In choosing the foods that we buy, it is important to read the nutrition label of the product. Most of the time, we assume based on how a product tastes. However, based on this list, it is safe to say that some food products are not what they seem. In order to control the amount of your sugar intake, it would be best to prepare home-cooked meals instead of buying ready-to-eat meals and to choose fresh ingredients instead of canned ones.
Photo credit: Oxford Brookes University