Which sugar is the healthiest?

Brown sugar, white sugar, raw sugar, honey? Added sugars are roughly the same at 16 calories per teaspoon give or take. They are even broken down in our a body in a very similar way. The ‘nutrition profile’ and Glycaemic Index of added sugar does differ ever so slightly but they are so small that any health benefits are negligible. We would need to eat a truck load of it to get any small nutritional benefit which would not be recommended (due to the recommended intakes discussed below).

Here’s an example-

Honey contains roughly 13mg of magnesium per 100g. Perfect start! Sounds good, tell me more.

Now to convert that from milligrams to grams it ends up being 0.013g per 100g. OK not as good as first thought.

Now we don’t really eat honey by the 100g so let’s bring that down to a teaspoon (5g). That is 0.00065g of magnesium per teaspoon of honey.

The Recommended Daily Intake of Magnesium is 320-420mg per day (note-we’re back to mg). You’ve just ticked off 0.65mg (0.2%). Not exactly worth the health hype right?

Worry less about which is the ‘healthier option’ and more about its overall consumption. Current recommendations in Australia suggest no greater than 6 teaspoons of added sugar per day (that’s roughly 25-30g for reference). This ‘'added sugar’ category includes things like honey, maple syrup, juice concentrates and what we traditionally see as standard table sugar.

Bottom line- Sugar isn’t good or bad. There’s no reason to feel guilty about its intake. Just try to consume a little less sugar, less often. Use sugar for taste, not for its health benefits. Keep an eye on its role in your food choices and which food may have a sneaky excess.

What about the question- Is sugar addictive? More on that in a future post.