Added Sugars on the Nutrition Facts Label

The Added Sugars line is the newest — and most scrutinized — line on the Nutrition Facts panel. It answers one question: how much sugar did the maker put in, beyond what the ingredients naturally contain?

What counts as "added"

Per 21 CFR 101.9(c)(6)(iii), Added Sugars include sugars "either added during the processing of foods, or packaged as such", specifically:

• Free mono- and disaccharides (table sugar, dextrose, etc.)
• Sugars from syrups and honey — yes, honey counts
• Sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices in excess of what the same volume of 100% juice would contain

What does not count: lactose naturally in milk, fructose naturally in fruit. A strawberry jam's berries contribute only to Total Sugars; the cup of granulated sugar you add contributes to both Total and Added.

There are narrow exclusions — for example, fruit-juice concentrates used in standardized jams and jellies per the identity standards — but for a typical small-batch product the rule of thumb is simple: if you added a sweetener, it's Added Sugars.

The required format

Added Sugars appears indented under Total Sugars, with mandated wording: "Includes Xg Added Sugars". Rounding follows the sugar rules: nearest gram, "less than 1 gram" allowed under 1g, may be zero under 0.5g. The Daily Value is 50g for adults, so a serving with 10g of added sugar shows 20% DV.

Keep records

Less known: for products where added sugars can't be verified by analysis alone (mixtures of naturally-occurring and added sugars, fermented products), the regulation requires you to keep written records substantiating the declared amount, for at least two years (101.9(g)(10)–(11)). Your recipe, with amounts and the calculation behind the label, is that record — one more reason to keep recipes in a system rather than on paper scraps.

Common mistakes

• Forgetting honey and maple syrup are added sugars.
• Printing "Includes 0g Added Sugars" on a honey-sweetened product (free tools with hardcoded zeros do this).
• Confusing the line's math: Added Sugars is a subset of Total Sugars, never in addition to it.