That "Added Sugar" Number Isn't What You Think It Is.
Pick up any packaged food and look at the sugar section on the nutrition label. You'll see two lines:
Total Sugars — All sugar in the product from every source.
Added Sugars — Sugar that was added during manufacturing.
Seems simple. Total is everything, added is the junk they put in. Higher added sugar means a worse product. Right?
Not exactly.
And the gap between what that label says and what it actually means might change how you evaluate every bar, snack, and packaged food you buy.
The FDA Has a Definition Problem
In 2020, the FDA started requiring "Added Sugars" as a separate line on every nutrition label. The intention was good — help consumers see how much refined sugar manufacturers are sneaking into products.
The problem is how they defined "added."
The FDA's rule: Any sugar that is introduced during processing counts as added sugar. It doesn't matter whether that sugar is high fructose corn syrup from a factory or organic honey from a beehive. If it wasn't already inside the raw ingredient before manufacturing, it's "added."
That means organic honey — a whole food that humans have eaten for thousands of years, one that contains enzymes, antioxidants, and trace minerals — gets the same classification as refined white sugar, corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners on your nutrition label.
The label doesn't distinguish between them. But your body does.
What That Looks Like on a Real Label
Take our Dark Chocolate Cherry & Almond Energy Bar. The nutrition label reads:
If you're scanning labels quickly, 14g of added sugar looks high. It looks like we dumped a bunch of refined sugar into the recipe. That's exactly what the label was designed to flag.
Here's what's actually in there:
The 14g of "added sugar" is almost entirely organic honey. That's our sweetener. The only one we use. No refined sugar. No corn syrup. No artificial sweeteners. Just honey — added during the recipe process, which makes it "added" by the FDA's definition.
The remaining 3g of total sugar comes from naturally occurring sugars in the dried cherries, dark chocolate, and other whole ingredients. Those don't count as "added" because they were already present in the raw ingredient.
So the label says 14g of added sugar. What it means is 14g of organic honey.
Why the Distinction Matters for Your Body
Refined sugar and honey are not the same thing metabolically, even though the FDA labels them the same way.
Refined sugar is stripped of everything except sucrose. It hits your bloodstream fast, spikes your blood sugar, and crashes. There's no fiber, no nutrients, no enzymes slowing the process down. It's pure energy with no supporting cast.
Honey contains both glucose and fructose in a natural ratio, plus enzymes, amino acids, antioxidants, and trace minerals. It absorbs more gradually than refined sugar because it comes packaged with compounds that moderate the process. That's why honey provides sustained energy rather than a spike-and-crash cycle.
The same goes for sugar from whole fruit. The sugar in our dried cherries comes with fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants. Your body processes it differently than the same number of grams from a sugar packet.
The FDA's label treats them identically. Your metabolism does not.
How to Actually Read a Sugar Label
Next time you're comparing products, don't just look at the added sugar number. Look at where it's coming from.
Check the ingredient list. If the sugar sources are honey, dried fruit, and dark chocolate — that's whole food sugar. If they're corn syrup, cane sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose, or anything ending in "-ose" that you don't recognize — that's refined.
Compare the total sugar to added sugar. A small gap means most of the sugar is added (whatever the source). A large gap means a lot of sugar is naturally occurring in the whole ingredients.
Look at what else the product provides. A bar with 17g of sugar, 4g of fiber, organic oats, real nut butter, and honey is delivering fuel your body can use. A bar with 17g of sugar and a 30-ingredient label full of isolates and preservatives is delivering sugar with a side of chemicals.
The number matters. But the source matters more.
What We Put In — And What We Don't
Every Kate's bar is sweetened exclusively with organic honey. No refined sugar, no corn syrup, no artificial sweeteners. The "added sugar" on our labels is honey — and we're proud of that, even if the FDA doesn't differentiate it from the alternatives.
We'd rather have an honest label that requires explanation than a low number achieved through artificial sweeteners that your body doesn't know what to do with.
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