A Food Info data study · June 2026
The sweet deception: when “healthier” means higher sugar
We assume that if something doesn’t come in a wrapper labelled something like “chocolate,” “sweets” or “ice cream” (the sugar markers we’re most familiar with), it must be near enough sugar-free. Think again.
Sugar has become an expert at camouflage, hiding inside foods designed to feel virtuous: granola bars, breakfast cereals, dried fruit, even savoury sauces. We pulled the sugar content of hundreds of these everyday “better for you” products from the official UK and US food datasets and lined them up against a classic chocolate bar.
The results were startling. In several cases, the “healthy alternative” lost.
The illusion of natural sugars (dried fruit)
| Food | Sugar per 100 g |
|---|---|
| Dried cranberries, sweetened | 72.6 g |
| Dates (medjool) | 66.5 g |
| Dried mango, sweetened | 66.3 g |
| M&M’s milk chocolate | 63.7 g |
| Golden raisins | 59.2 g |
| Plain milk chocolate | 56.0 g |
| Dried apricots | 53.4 g |
| Dried figs | 47.9 g |
| Prunes | 38.1 g |
Sweetened dried cranberries and mango, and even dates, carry more sugar than M&M’s milk chocolate, despite seeming “natural.”
Before you grab a handful of dried fruit, pause. Drying concentrates the fruit’s own sugars as the water leaves, so dates, raisins, apricots and figs all land between roughly 48 and 67 g of sugar per 100 g, matching or beating a chocolate bar. That sugar is largely intrinsic, and dried fruit brings fibre chocolate doesn’t, but it still adds up fast. And the “fruit” snacks that seem healthiest, sweetened dried cranberries and mango, have sugar added on top, pushing them past chocolate entirely. For anyone watching sugar, “it’s only dried fruit” hides that it can be two thirds sugar by weight.
The granola bar problem
| Food | Sugar per 100 g |
|---|---|
| Granola bar, fruit filled, nonfat | 45.2 g |
| Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix bar | 42.9 g |
| Kashi GoLean chewy bar | 42.3 g |
| Cereal bar with fruit, nuts and chocolate (UK) | 40.7 g |
| Nature Valley, yogurt coated | 40.0 g |
The labels are the giveaway: “nonfat,” “fruit filled.” When manufacturers take fat out to make a product feel healthier, they usually put sugar in. Several of these bars, even the “nonfat” ones, are over 40% sugar by weight, within touching distance of a chocolate bar.
Breakfast: the hidden source
| Cereal | Sugar per 100 g |
|---|---|
| Chocolate flavoured rice cereal | 42.9 g |
| Frosted cornflakes | 38.3 g |
| Honey / nut coated cornflakes | 37.4 g |
| Frosted / sugar coated rice cereal | 27.5 g |
Cereals were never really designed to be a health food; many are dessert with milk. The worst here clear 40 g of sugar per 100 g and most coated cereals sit in the high 30s, so a typical bowl can carry as much sugar as several biscuits before you’ve added any milk.
It’s not just sweet: the savoury traps
| Food | Sugar per 100 g |
|---|---|
| Barbecue sauce | 29.9 g |
| Tomato ketchup | 27.5 g |
Sugar isn’t just a dessert ingredient. Ketchup and BBQ sauce both carry 27 to 30 g of sugar per 100 g (a quarter to nearly a third by weight), so a generous squeeze at the table adds up faster than anyone expects.
The golden rule: don’t trust the label, read the number
“Healthy” on the front of a pack is a marketing claim, not a nutrition fact. The only reliable way to know is to check the number. From dried fruit and granola bars to frosted cereals and condiments, these are the places where sugar surprises hide, so look at the total sugar before you buy.
Methodology
- Figures: total sugars per 100 g, from McCance & Widdowson’s CoFID (UK) and USDA FoodData Central (US).
- Added vs intrinsic: dried fruit sugar is intrinsic; granola bars, frosted cereals and sauces contain substantial added sugar, and we flag the distinction rather than blur it.
- Per 100 g is used for a fair comparison; real portions vary (a 30 g handful of raisins carries roughly a third of the per 100 g figure).
Check the sugar, and the full nutrition, of any food, free and without a login.
Search any food →Not medical or dietary advice. Free to cite or reproduce with a link to food-info.org. For the underlying figures, contact info@food-info.org.