Elizabeth Berrett
Sugar has had a rough few years in the public stocks, and it’s not hard to see why: the biggest troublemakers are often the hidden sugary foods you’d never suspect of being sweet-talkers. You can spot the chocolate bar a mile off. It’s the “virtuous” yoghurt, the innocent-looking cereal, the sauce that behaves like pudding, and the bread quietly moonlighting as dessert that catch people out.
And Britain, it seems, has been eating sugar with the confidence of someone who hasn’t checked the bill. A report by market researchers Euromonitor found that many Brits consume up to 50% more sugar than they think, and many of us are packing in twice as much in a day as the global average. If that doesn’t make you squint at your shopping basket, it should.
We’ve all had sugar drilled into us as the villain for teeth, but the modern list of consequences is longer and far less polite: obesity, increased risk of heart disease, and type 2 diabetes all make an appearance when added sugar becomes a daily habit rather than an occasional treat.
As Dr Prudence Knight, from online GP service Push Doctor, puts it: “A little sugar is fine, but too much is bad for our health, so it is important to know how much is OK and how to make changes if we’re eating overdoing it, the recommended limit for adults is 30g of free sugar per day, for children aged seven to 10 it’s 24g per day, and for children aged four to six, it’s 19g per day.”
Before you start eyeing up every strawberry like it’s plotting against you, it helps to know what you’re actually counting. Free sugars are those added to foods or found in syrup, honey or fruit juice and smoothies, and don’t include the naturally occurring sugars we consume in things like milk, whole fruits and vegetables.
So, how do you cut back without living a joyless life of boiled eggs and resentment? Dr Knight and leading Harley Street nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert have a practical playbook—one that targets hidden sugary foods where they do the most damage: quietly, consistently, and in places you least expect.
1) Check the back of the packaging
Food marketing is a theatre production. The front-of-pack promises you a better life. The back-of-pack tells the truth.
“There are a variety of foods and drinks on the shelves these days and it is often difficult to determine just how good for us they are,” says Lambert. “For example, a ‘healthy’ drink that may appear to be a good choice, may contain 20 or 30g of sugar per serving.”
Her advice is old-school sensible: turn it around and read the label properly. She recommends always checking the back of the packaging – look under ‘carbohydrate: of which sugars’ on the food labelling. “Another key area to watch out for is condiments, as sauces often have a lot of sugar,” she adds.
If you want one takeaway today, make it this: the sneakiest hidden sugary foods often come in bottles.
2) Compare sugar per 100g
Portion sizes can be an optimistic fantasy. “Serving suggestions” have been known to assume you’re nibbling like a Victorian child.
“If you go by the 100g figure, you can easily compare the sugar content of one product to another,” says Lambert. “Many products will give you macronutrients based on ‘portion size’, which might only be a quarter or half of what you would consume.
“From 100g, it’s then usually easy to work out the sugar content of the whole product, if it’s not already listed. For example, if there is 5g sugar per 100g in a 400g container, that means there’s 20g in the whole product.”
That one habit—checking per 100g—turns label-reading from guesswork into a fair fight.
3) Re-educate your palate
If your taste buds have been trained on constant sweetness, bland food can feel like punishment. The fix is not heroics; it’s retraining.
“Try to reduce the amount of sweeteners you consume,” says Dr Knight. “This can help you get used to less sweet tastes which, in turn, should reduce your sugar consumption.”
It’s not glamorous, but it works. Over time, the “need” for sweet becomes a preference, and preferences can be negotiated.
4) Learn the names of hidden sugars
“Sugars can be labelled in more than one way,” says Lambert, “and if you’re not familiar with them, you may not realise you’re eating them.”
Nectar, dextrose, fructose and molasses are all examples of sugars under different guises – so keep an eye on the ingredients list and, if in doubt, a quick Google check should clarify.
5. Keep fruit juice and smoothies to 150ml or less each day
There’s nothing better than a cold glass of OJ in the morning, but overindulging on breakfast juices is an easy way to go well over the recommended sugar intake before you’ve even left the house.
“While they do contain vitamins and minerals, it’s easy to overconsume juices, and they’re terrible for your teeth due to the combination of high acid and sugar levels,” says Knight. She recommends drinking no more than a 150ml serving per day.
6. Choose low-sugar alternatives
Opting for a low-sugar alternative is the simplest way of cutting down your daily intake. “If you switch an 85g pot of fruit fromage frais for plain Greek yoghurt sweetened with chopped fruit, you’ll save 10g of sugar, which is half the daily recommended amount for a six-year-old,” says Knight. “Meanwhile, standard tomato ketchup has around 23% sugar, but you could easily switch this for a reduced or sugar-free version instead.”
7. Rethink your snacks
Everyone needs a snack between meals occasionally – but too many sugary treats can easily start to add up.
“Snack foods such as protein bars often contain added sugars and artificial sweeteners,” warns Lambert. For a nutritious and cheap pick-me-up, she suggests grabbing a handful of nuts and a banana instead.
8. Say goodbye to fizzy drinks
“Many fizzy drinks have a lot of added sugar,” says Knight. “In fact, a can of Coca Cola has 35g of added sugar, which is more than the recommended limit for an adult.” She recommends switching your high-calorie fizzy drinks for water, tea or diet drinks, which contain no added sugar.
9. Make small manageable changes over time
Finally, it’s crucial to think of quitting sugar as a gradual process, rather than a habit you’re going to quash overnight. Many of us are unknowingly addicted to sugar, which makes it a difficult cycle to break free from.
“Start small,” says Dr Knight, “this way, you’re more likely to stick to your changes than throwing out all of your old habits then getting fed up after a week.”
Begin by cutting out unnecessary sugary drinks and snacks from your daily routine, and then you’ll be better placed to start conquering your cravings completely.
