health foods with sugar

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1. In the Fine Print

Even health-food stores have shelves filled with foods that contain added sugars, says Brigid Titgemeier, MS, RDN, LD, a registered dietitian nutritionist with the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. That's why reading the ingredients list is so incredibly important.

When checking the label, remember that sugar goes by more than 50 different aliases, explains Nicole M. Avena, PhD, neuroscientist, food addiction expert and author of Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar). A simple trick to ID a lot of them: Look for any ingredients that end with "ose." Some examples include dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose and sucrose. If any "oses" crack the top five listed ingredients—labels list ingredients in order of quantity, from most to least—shop for another option, Avena says.