Sugar and Alcohol labeling
 

New to this and confused that most consumer product labeling provides sugar details, but Fitday only provides opportunity to report alcohol - is it correct to report sugar as alcohol? I understand the connection in the chemistry realm - curious as to whether this is a simple one-to-one correlation between sugar and alcohol when it comes to nutrition

Sugar is a carbohydrate
 

Sugar is actually a simple carbohydrate. If you are trying to create a custom food, then the sugar belongs in the carbohydrate section, not the alcohol section. This is how it will be reported on the nutrition label.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

That is good to know. I love this site just what I needed to get me back on track.

During my 'creating custom food' process I realized that V8 (V-Fusion Strawberry Banana)46 fl oz(aka 1qt) seperates my Sugars from my carbohydrates .

Nut. facts from Label:

V8 V fusion Veg & fruit
---------------------------
8 fl oz serving size 1
Calories 120
Total Cabohydrates 28 mg 9% (% daily value)
Sugars 25 g

So is the 28 mg including the sugar 25 grms? or should I add 25 to 28 on my food log?

Personal Note: BTW any thing with tomato juice in it (aka Bloody Mary) i do not like so this is a BIG step for me to drink/enjoy V-8. Actually I LOVE the V-fusion and just want to report it correctly on my food log.

On nutrition labels, the sugar is already counted in the carbohydrates. It is just listed to break down the carbs into categories. You do not need to add them together.

The label is trying to say "this food has 28 grams of carbohydrate of which 25 grams are sugar."

I hope this helps!

So are the other three carbs considered starches or what?

It depends on the food. It could be fiber, could be some kind of complex carb or starch.

Am I correctly reading here that I should not count the sugar extra when creating a custom food. I am new to this too, on my 4th day! I have wondered about not having the sugar listed on the food label, since I am prediabetic and really need to curb my sugar input, it is vitally important I get this correct. Please advise. Merci Beaucoup.

Champagne
 

I was looking for a listing for Champagne, in particular Rose, but I saw none listed. Did I overlook it, does anyone know how to rate this?

Also confused about Alcohol listing
 

To get back to the original question in this thread;

[QUOTE=deebeemack;68]New to this and confused that most consumer product labeling provides sugar details, but Fitday only provides opportunity to report alcohol - is it correct to report sugar as alcohol?

If sugars should be listed as a break down element in total Carbohydrate, then why is Alcohol even listed in the Fitday Nutrition label for custom foods? I've looked at many food nutrition labels in my cupboard and refrigerator and can't find Alcohol listed. Even on fruit juices that actually through fermentation could have an Alcohol content....:confused:

I am totally confused about the alcohol/sugar thing too - does anyone know about this?

my guess would be to count it the same as any white table wine.

I STILL do not understand the sugar/alcohol concept. If a nutrition label has 38g carbs, and 2g sugar and no alcohol do I enter the 2g sugar in any way when I creat a custom food?

Thanks for the clarification. This is day#1 for me and was going to create a post about this same topic. Makes sense now:)

From the sounds of what the FitDay guys are saying, you do *not* enter the Sugar into any field at all.

I just bought the program today on advice from a friend and was astonished it doesn't track sugar separately from all carbs. There is a massive difference between total carb count from highly processed sugar foods and natural fruits and veggies. That I can't indicate (or see) the difference pretty much makes it only useful for tracking the fat vs protein ratio I'm getting because the carbs is a completely useless number for people who cut sugars (especially processed sugars) out and try to get carbs entirely from veggies and fruits.

Smacking myself for not trying the free web based one first.

Beyond that one issue I love it... but the way I approach my food choices I really prefer to see the actual amount that are sugars. Time to put in a feature request I guess. :) I really hope I'm just missing something.

Every label I have ever seen has Carbohydrates and then within the Carbohydrates, Fiber and Sugars are listed however:

1) Fitday has a field for Fiber but not Sugar .. why?
2) Fiber + Sugar does not add up to Carbohydrates on the Facts sheet
3) I am trying to reduce my sugar intake... how can I do with without a sugar goal / field on Fitday??

You did it for "fat" ... why not for "carbohydrates" ?? :mad:

I agree!
Come one Fitday, lets get a breakdown of the carbs that includes sugars.

While we're on it, it would be nice to be able to track the saturated and trans fats, so we can see how well we're doing cutting them out.

Besides this flaw I love this program!

Sugar alcohols?
 

I am also of the school that tracks simple sugar separately from all carbohydrates. I'd like to see FitDay include sugar as a separate entity in the nutritional information.

That being said, one of my favorite breakfasts is a gluten-free high-protein breakfast bar called thinkThin. Instead of using simple sugars, sugar alcohol is employed to make the bar actually edible. Do sugar alcohols like that count as alcohol?

Thanks in advance for any feedback. Congrats to everyone on here for taking the initiative to make healthy choices in your lives!

From what I understand "alcohol" on FitDay is the alcohol content of alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, etc) and everything else is just carbs. I had a friend tell me your "sugars" are your total carbs minus fiber, but that seems too simplistic.

Hope I understand what you're looking for. It's getting late and I'm getting tired. Labels don't actually show how much sugar is in something. If you compare the nutrition label with entering a new food on fitday, they should be the same and you can fill in the blanks. Hope that helped. Alcohol is alcohol just list your drink of preference and it will be entered as alcohol calories.

Hi,
Champagne is 25 cargs per ounce.

Any chance the FitDay folks can clarify this apparently on-going question on how to list sugar in our custom foods charts?????? Alcohol ain't a problem as I don't drink the stuff.

Hey, FITDAY, where can I insert the sugar numbers???

New here & the 1st thing I noticed in there's no place to list sugars.
This is a great place but that's a major flaw. It's like doing something half way. With all the diabetics in the world now I can't imagine not counting sugars. I also noticed no one is answering this question. Are there moderators on the board to help out? :confused::confused::confused:

Thanks for the info
 

I was inputting my sugars into alcohol field. Thanks for the correction. I guess I'll have to keep track of this separately. No worries.

Alcohol or Sugar Alcohol
 

I was confused over the alcohol vs. sugar alcohol as well (still not totally clear), but it looks like sugar alcohol should not be entered into FitDay. It is already accounted for in carbohydrates. I ran across an interesting article that indicates sugar alcohol is neither sugar nor alcohol, but is so named because the chemical properties are similar. (What are Sugar Alcohols?)
My only guess for the "alcohol" field is so you can track how much alcohol you actually consume...perhaps if you have 100 grams of champagne that is 10% by volume (numbers made up for simplicity), you could enter 10g in the alcohol section. It seems like you would still need to account for the calories, however.

Use the alcohol field as a substitute field for tallying sugar
 

Since they surprisingly don't provide a sugar field, I use the alcohol field. That way I can see my daily intakes of sugar - except it's labeled as alcohol. Of course, it totally screws up any graphs and pie charts, but until Fitday fixes this oversite, there's no other option.

Why they can't mimic the standard food label is anyone's guess.

[QUOTE=emarcy54;808]To get back to the original question in this thread;

[QUOTE=deebeemack;68]New to this and confused that most consumer product labeling provides sugar details, but Fitday only provides opportunity to report alcohol - is it correct to report sugar as alcohol? QUOTE]

FitDay is inadequate for tracking sugar because it does not show a sub category under Carbs for Sugar info. In my view, we should be able to enter both Fiber and Sugar under Carbs.

I use the free web software. Wonder if the software or premium version allow sugar to be entered?

[QUOTE=5524;5173][QUOTE=emarcy54;808]To get back to the original question in this thread;

I think it was this thread, someone wrote they bought the premium version without looking there was no place for sugar on the basics. Sure enough not on the premium either.

Comment for fitday admin: Would it not be important for diabetic to able to differentiate sugar from regular carbohydrate, they are not assimilate by the body the same way. And I would personally like to be able to track them separately.

sorry to add,
most of the food label already has carbohydrate and sugar.