Added Sugar Is Not Food

A policy shift decades in the making

For years, official U.S. dietary guidance treated added sugar as something to "limit" — keep it under 10% of daily calories, the 2020-2025 guidelines said. The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines, published at RealFood.gov, went further than any previous edition: "Added sugars are not part of eating real foods and are not recommended." For children, the guidance is even more explicit — added sugars should be avoided entirely. This is not a fringe position. It is now official U.S. government policy.

What counts as added sugar

Added sugars are sugars and syrups that are added to foods during processing or preparation. They include sucrose (table sugar), high-fructose corn syrup, honey, agave, maple syrup, and dozens of other names that appear on ingredient labels. They do not include the sugars naturally present in whole fruits, vegetables, or plain dairy — those come packaged with fibre, water, vitamins, and minerals that slow absorption and provide nutritional value. The distinction matters because a whole apple and a glass of apple juice deliver sugar in fundamentally different ways to your body.

The average American consumes approximately 17 teaspoons (71 grams) of added sugar per day, according to the CDC. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 6 teaspoons for women and 9 for men. The new Dietary Guidelines say the ideal amount is zero.

The 2025-2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines: 'Added sugars are not part of eating real foods and are not recommended.'

Where the sugar hides

Added sugar is not just in desserts and soft drinks. It is in bread, pasta sauce, salad dressing, yogurt, granola bars, ketchup, canned soup, crackers, and most packaged foods sold in American supermarkets. Sugar-sweetened beverages — sodas, fruit drinks, energy drinks, sweetened coffees and teas — remain the single largest source of added sugar in the American diet. RealFood.gov explicitly names these as products to avoid.

The metabolic case against sugar

Robert Lustig, a paediatric endocrinologist at UCSF, has argued since 2009 that fructose — the sweet component of sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup — is metabolised by the liver in a pathway similar to ethanol (alcohol). His lecture "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" laid out the biochemistry: excessive fructose consumption drives de novo lipogenesis (the liver converting sugar to fat), insulin resistance, visceral fat accumulation, and elevated uric acid. A 2014 study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that participants who consumed 17-21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of cardiovascular death compared to those consuming 8% or less.

The 2024 BMJ umbrella review on ultra-processed food found that diets high in these products — which are typically the primary vehicle for added sugars — were associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety, and all-cause mortality. RealFood.gov states that diets dominated by processed foods are "strongly linked to obesity, Type 2 diabetes, depression, heart disease, certain cancers, and shortened life expectancy."

A JAMA Internal Medicine study found that consuming 17-21% of calories from added sugar increased cardiovascular death risk by 38%.

Natural sugar is different

Eating a whole orange is not the same as drinking orange juice. The whole fruit contains fibre that slows sugar absorption, water that provides volume, and micronutrients that support metabolic health. The juice strips out the fibre and concentrates the sugar. This is why RealFood.gov recommends whole fruits (2 servings daily) while advising against sugar-sweetened beverages entirely. The sugar in a strawberry is not the problem. The 71 grams of added sugar per day is.