The term “added sugars” was defined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2016 as sugars that are:
• added during the processing of foods, or are packaged as such;
• free mono- and disaccharides;
• sugars from syrups and honey; and
• sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices that are in excess of what would be expected from the same volume of 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice of the same type.
The FDA definition of added sugars does not include:
• fruit or vegetable juice concentrated from 100 percent fruit juice that is sold to consumers; and
• the fruit component of fruit spreads.
While many whole foods contain naturally-occurring sugars (e.g., sucrose, glucose or fructose in fruit and lactose in milk), these are not considered added sugars when found in whole foods. Other sweeteners such as sugar alcohols (e.g., erythritol and xylitol), low-calorie sweeteners (e.g., aspartame and sucralose) and no-calorie natural sweeteners (e.g., stevia leaf extract and monk fruit extract) are also not considered added sugars.