The Hidden Sugars Guide

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If your doctor mentioned prediabetes, you’re not alone, and it isn’t a verdict. Ask your doctor what your own numbers mean; Diabetes Canada’s definitions are linked in the sources. This is education, not medical advice.

On a Canadian ingredient list, look for the word Sugars. Under Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations, sugar-based ingredients are grouped in one set of brackets after the word Sugars, listed heaviest first, and the group sits in the ingredient list by its combined weight.

If Sugars appears in the first two or three ingredients, sugar is a main ingredient of that food, whatever the front of the box says.

Fruit juice concentrate and maltodextrin are meant to go inside the Sugars brackets too. Some foods don’t use the brackets:

• Sugar, honey or syrup sold on its own
• Plain fruit juice
• Foods with less than 0.5 g of sugars per serving
• Foods whose only added sugar has “sugar” in its name, like “cane sugar”

Sugar inside another ingredient, like chocolate chips, also stays with that ingredient. So check the brackets, and still read the rest of the list.

On labels from outside Canada

Labels on food bought outside Canada, such as in the US, may list sugars separately, so sugar can be spread across several names and none lands near the top. Signs to look for: anything ending in “ose” (glucose, fructose, dextrose, maltose), any kind of syrup, and any juice concentrate.

The front of the package

Since 1 January 2026, most packaged foods over set limits must carry a “High in sugars” symbol on the front. No symbol doesn’t mean low sugar, so check the brackets too.

One quick comparison

On the Nutrition Facts table, compare the % Daily Value for sugars between two products. Health Canada’s rule of thumb: 5% DV or less is a little, and 15% DV or more is a lot.

More to recognize

Maltodextrin, dextrin, corn sweetener, glucose solids, diastatic malt, treacle, grape sugar, beet sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, panela, sucanat, and anything called “crystals”, “solids”, “nectar” or “concentrate” after a fruit or cane name.

The SugarScience team at UCSF counts at least 61 names, based on US labels. Lactose is the sugar found naturally in milk. When lactose is added to a food as an ingredient, it goes inside the Sugars brackets too.

Starch is made of long chains of glucose, which your body breaks down during digestion. How much it raises blood sugar depends on the food, the portion, how it’s cooked and what it’s eaten with (Diabetes Canada, Understanding the glycemic index).

Your own numbers can show how you respond, and your doctor can help you read them.

If you take medication to lower your blood sugar or blood pressure, talk to your prescriber before cutting back on carbs or starches, because your dose may need to change.

The glycemic index (GI) compares how much a food raises blood glucose over two hours, for the same amount of carbohydrate, against pure glucose, which scores 100. In published tables, several everyday starches score higher than table sugar. Diabetes Canada groups low GI as 55 or less, medium as 56 to 69 and high as 70 or more.

One option: pick a product you buy often, read its Sugars brackets, and compare its % Daily Value with a second option. What you do with what you find is up to you. Don’t just listen to me either. It’s information. You are in control.