When you are trying to adjust your diet to live more healthfully and keep your blood sugar levels under control, it can be frustrating when certain foods send your levels skyrocketing. Funnily enough, it’s always something you never suspected when you bought it at the store.
Next time, save yourself some trouble by avoiding these four foods in the grocery aisles.
1. Pasta Sauces
You wouldn’t think of rich, savory, and zesty pasta 
sauces as having sugar in them, but they do. Pick up a jar of your favorite tomato-based sauce and read the label. You’ll be surprised to find that they can contain between 6 to 12 grams of sugar per half-cup serving. This may not seem like a lot of the sweet stuff, but it is almost completely unnecessary in a pasta sauce! Plus, when you’re watching what you eat, every gram counts.
2. Salad Dressing
Beware the next time you make a health salad. Your salad dressing may contain hidden sugars. Raspberry vinaigrette, French, and Catalina dressings can have between 5 to 7 grams of it in every two tablespoons serving. The next time you’re making a salad plate, consider a homemade vinaigrette of oil and vinegar.
3. Coleslaw
Have you ever ordered a side of slaw with your hotdogs or grilled chicken thinking it was a healthy option? Maybe not. Prepackaged and restaurant coleslaws can contain about 15 grams of sugar per regular size serving.
4. Ketchup
You may expect this condiment to contain some of the sweet stuff, but not a lot. Wrong! A tablespoon of ketchup has about 4 grams of sugar. Some brands make a ‘no sugar added’ version that is better. If you really want to cut back, consider switching to mustard, which only contains about 1 gram of sugar per tablespoon.
Sugar Is In Many Packaged Foods
The dry goods and canned foods sections of the grocery store can be a minefield for diabetics concerned about their blood glucose levels. Manufacturers include small to moderate amounts of sugar in many packaged foods. It’s known to increase the appetite and is also an easy way to make food tasty. Doctors recommend making as many things as you can from scratch at home, such as pasta sauces, baby food, and granolas. You can also buy plain foods and sweeten them yourself, such as plain yogurt. This helps limit the amount of sugar you take in.
[expand title=”References“]
Slideshow: Surprising Sources of Hidden Sugar. URL Link. Accessed May 1, 2017.
Looking to Reduce Your Family’s Intake of Added Sugars? Here’s How. URL Link. Accessed May 1, 2017.
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