Spotting the sugar
Figuring out the added sugar in packaged foods can take some detective work of your own. The government-mandated "Nutrition Facts" label on food packages provides the product's total sugar grams – both natural and added.

To find them, you have to read the nutrition label, where ingredients are listed in descending order, by amount.

Even then, you may not discover the amount of added sugar by just looking for the word "sugar." It has about 70 names, including sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup and other names like diastatic malt, ethyl maltol, D-mannose, crystalline fructose and galactose – which sounds like it's from another planet.

For example, you'd expect a Hostess Twinkie to contain table sugar on its nutrition label. But among its 37 ingredients are four other sweeteners: corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose and glucose – 19 grams of sugars in all, packed into a 150-calorie snack.

In general, "avoid foods with ingredients ending in 'ose,' " says Donna Weihofen, R.D., M.S., and senior nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics in Madison.

Culprits include glucose, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, oligofructose and polydextrose.