Added sugar vs natural sugar: what a label shows and what it hides

A carton of fruit juice can truthfully say "no added sugar" and still contain a significant amount of the sugar health advice tells you to cut. Three overlapping terms explain why, and most labels in Thailand print only one of them.

Added, free and total sugars

The FDA's definition of added sugars and the NHS definition of free sugars both leave out the sugars found naturally in milk, fruit and vegetables. A label's "total sugars" still counts them.

Juice is where the line bites. WHO counts the sugars in fruit juice as free sugars and notes that most juices, including those without added sugar, contain significant amounts. A whole orange and a glass of orange juice sit on opposite sides.

24 g or 65 g: both numbers are right

WHO recommends getting less than 10% of daily energy from free sugars. On about 2,000 kcal a day that is roughly 50 g, or 12 level teaspoons, and going down to 5% or less may bring further health benefits (WHO).

The Thai FDA's advice for Thai people, in line with the Department of Health and the Thai Dietary Reference Intakes 2020, is no more than 6 teaspoons, or 24 g, of added sugar a day, natural sugars not included. The front-of-pack GDA label (ฉลากหวาน มัน เค็ม) works with 65 g a day because it covers total sugars, natural and added together.

What a label shows, and what it leaves out

A Thai nutrition panel lists "total sugars" (น้ำตาลทั้งหมด) under total carbohydrate and does not split added from natural (Thai FDA, Notification No. 445). The UK and European "carbohydrate, of which sugars" also covers all sugars, the NHS notes. The US format, seen on some imported products, adds an "Includes Added Sugars" line under "Total Sugars", with a Daily Value of 50 g on a 2,000 kcal diet (FDA).

On most packs, then, the ingredients list does the sorting. Ingredients run from the largest amount to the smallest, so sugar near the top suggests a lot of it. Added sugar also travels under other names: the NHS lists cane sugar, brown sugar, honey, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate or purée, dextrose, maltose and molasses.

Two cases catch people out. The sugars on a dairy or fruit dessert may be just lactose or the fruit's own sugar, so check the ingredients for sugar or syrup. And a savoury dish can get sugar from its sauce: sweet chilli, teriyaki, ketchup-style and BBQ sauces often contain it, even when the dish doesn't taste sweet. To compare two products fairly, use the per 100 g figures (our guide to reading a ready meal pack shows where they sit).

"No added sugar" is a legal claim, not a zero

In Thailand, "no added sugar" and "unsweetened" are nutrient claims with conditions set by the Ministry of Public Health. Among them: no sugar may be added, and no ingredient containing added sugar, such as jam, jelly, concentrated juice or sweetened condensed milk, may be used (Thai FDA, Notification No. 445). The claim says nothing about natural sugar: a product made from fruit or milk keeps their sugars, and their calories.

Our menu, read the same way

We aim to use salt and sugar thoughtfully. No measured standard sits behind that aim, so we don't describe any of our dishes as low in sugar; where our menu marks an item as having no sugar added, we say exactly that and no more. Our berry compotes are listed as homemade, with no sugar added, but the berries bring their own sugars, so the drink is not sugar-free. The card shows its calories, calculated from the recipe rather than measured in a laboratory.

Blackcurrant Compote

26 kcal

Per pack. Calculated from the recipe, not measured in a lab.

See the full menu →

The same goes for the two cheesecakes marked "no sugar added": the fruit layer and the dairy still contain natural sugars. Every item, with its calculated calories, is on our menu; the assortment varies by machine. Sodium, the other line people check on a pack, has its own guide: salt and sodium.