41 Sneaky Names For Sugar

If you’ve ever been on a cleanse or detox diet, you were probably told to stop eating sugar as part of the plan. If you’re trying to clear up yeast or acne, you may have been warned to avoid sugar and alcohol. Fine, you thought. I can have my coffee without sugar, and I don’t drink soda anymore. I’ll have soda water with lime at the party this weekend.But watch out:Added sugars lurk everywhere, even in places we’ve come to know and love. Health food stores are stocked with treats that look healthy and come in cute wrappers, which lead us to think the food inside must be good for us — or at least better for us than the bag of Oreos we used to buy. Just because something is called a nectar doesn't mean it's healthy.A sugar is any chemically-related, sweet-tasting carbohydrate, most of which are consumed as food. Most are derived from plants, but sugars can exist in many tissues, and just because something is derived from a plant doesn’t mean it’s healthy.True, many of the sweeteners listed below offer more nutrition than the refined white crystal sugar you find in a sugar packet. For instance, blackstrap molasses contains a good amount of iron, and raw honey offers enzymes and antioxidants. Still, these “natural sweeteners” are sugar to your body.Whether you’re doing a cleanse to cleare up your skin, growing your energy, or reducing your pain, eliminating added sugars and natural sweeteners is a great experiment. It can be hard to avoid all the natural sweeteners that are really sugar unless you put on your food detective hat at the store.

Here are 41 names for sugar to look out for:

1. Agave nectar
2. Barley malt
3. Beet sugar
4. Black strap molasses
5. Brown rice syrup
6. Brown sugar
7. Cane sugar
8. Caramel
9. Carob syrup
10. Coconut palm sugar
11. Corn sweetener
12. Corn syrup
13. Corn-syrup solids
14. Crystalline fructose
15. Date sugar
16. Dehydrated cane juice
17. Dextrin
18. Dextrose
19. Dried oat syrup
20. Evaporated can juice crystals
21. Evaportated cane juice
22. Fruit juice concentrate
23. Glucose
24. Golden syrup
25. Gum syrup
26. High-fructose corn syrup
27. Honey
28. Inverted sugar
29. Malt syrup
30. Maltodextrin
31. Maltose
32. Maple syrup
33. Muscavado
34. Palm sugar
35. Refiner’s syrup
36. Simple syrup
37. Sorghum syrup
38. Sucanat
39. Sucrose
40. Treacle
41. Turbinado

This article was originally published on MindBodyGreen.com, written by Alexandra Jamieson.