Sugar in food

There are two types of sugar: intrinsic sugars found inside fruit and vegetables (mainly fructose) and milk (lactose); and added free sugars (mainly sucrose, which is glucose plus fructose). It's the free sugars that've been added to food by manufacturers you need to reduce.

So it's not just as simple as cutting back on the sugar you add to your tea and coffee. You also need to be careful of the sugar you can't see in processed foods.

Free sugars such as sucrose, glucose and corn syrup may be listed separately in the ingredients list. But if you look at the nutrition information panel, the total will be given under "sugars".

We checked out supermarket shelves and discovered that sauces, chutneys and marinades are sometimes high in sugar.

What we found

• Kiwis love tomato sauce. We eat it with sausages, chips, pies ... and some people eat it with eggs. But you may be surprised that most brands are more than 20 percent sugar - that's the equivalent of about one teaspoon of sugar in each tablespoon (17g) of sauce.
  
  
• You also need to check the nutrition information on products with the same name but different packaging. Wattie's Tomato Sauce in a can has 21.3 percent sugar; if you buy it in a squeeze bottle it has 31 percent sugar.
  
  
• Some brands of BBQ sauce have more sugar than other brands. Gregg's Classic BBQ sauce has 33.8 percent sugar. A better bet is Wattie's BBQ sauce - it has 24.4 percent sugar.
  
  
• Sugar is the main ingredient in some brands of sweet chilli sauce. Both Golden Sun and Trident brands contain more than 40 percent sugar.
  
  
• You also need to check marinades. Kikkoman Sweet Chilli Ginger & Soy Marinade has nearly three teaspoons of sugar in one tablespoon of marinade. Other marinades have less than half that amount.
  
  
• Most brands of chutney are more than 20 percent sugar, which is around one teaspoon or more per tablespoon.
  
  
• Mayonnaise doesn't have a lot of sugar but some brands are better than others. Best Foods Real Mayonnaise only has one percent, compared to Eta Mayonnaise which has 13.3 percent.
  
  
• Not surprisingly with mustards, you need to watch the honey mustards. Masterfoods Squeezy Honey Mustard was more than 25 percent sugar.

See Products compared for the full table of product comparisons.

Always read the labels - even when you're deciding between similar products of the same brand.