But as many know, it’s not always easy to cut back on sugar because it lurks in so many foods, from the obvious (sodas, cakes and candy) to the more subtle (breakfast cereals, bread, yogurt and tomato sauce). By some estimates, added sweeteners are in 74% of packaged foods sold in supermarkets.
The reason why added sugar wound up in so many of food items is pretty straightforward, Schmidt said.
“The food companies have three ingredients that they can use to make food more palatable — some people say hyper-palatable, so extremely attractive to consumers — and that’s sugar, fat and salt,” she said. “And, pretty much, they vary the combination of sugar, fat and salt in most of our ultraprocessed foods. And often they’re put in there because the industrial food production process kind of makes stuff taste bad.”