Newspapers regularly feature alarming articles blaming sugar for obesity and excess calorie intake.… The practice of comparing carbohydrates with sugar lumps is increasingly common.… Putting the record straight.

What do we mean?

The terms used to describe carbohydrates are defined by law. “Sugar” (singular) applies only to sucrose, while “sugars” (plural) covers all simple carbohydrates with a sweet taste (glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, etc.)


Neither term can be applied to complex carbohydrates like starch, for example. Although fairly straightforward, this rule is not sufficient to avoid confusion and misunderstandings.

Sugar and its equivalents

To describe a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce as equivalent to eight lumps of sugar is a misuse of words. Spaghetti does not contain added sugar. The only carbohydrates are starch from flour and sugars from the tomatoes.


Let’s take another example - a chocolate croissant. The chocolate and, in a smaller quantity, the pastry contain sugar (sucrose). But transforming starch from the flour into a lump of sugar is wrong.


In contrast, it’s acceptable to use the idea of equivalence to compare drinks that only contain sugars. For example, a pure orange juice contains 11 g of sugars (fruit sugar) for 100 ml of juice, or around two lumps of sugar for 100 ml, which is identical to a cola drink (10.6 g/100 ml).


When dealing with equivalents, remember to check the unit used: value per 100 g or value per portion.