Edit: thank you so much for all the answers!:) I think my question wasn’t too clear. Sorry about that. I do understand that there is sugar naturally in our food. I am just wondering how it is measured when nothing is added. E.g my oat milk says 5g of sugar per 100ml. But since no sugar is added, how could 5g per 100ml be determined? How do they know?
In: Chemistry
Turns out it’s [added enzymes which break down starch to form sugars (mainly maltose)](https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/is-oatly-healthy#:~:text=Sugars%20%2D%207%20g&text=It%20turns%20out%20the%20added,%2C%20primarily%20maltose%20%5B1%5D.)
This is the same way how saliva enzymes starts to break down starchy foods to sugars too (you may have done that experiment at school?)
“No sugar added” just means that no sweetener was incorporated into the substance when it was made. All living things have a need for sugar, so for example oat milk, which was once a plant, has sugar just by virtues of being a plant. There are various ways to measure the sugar content I’m sure, one of which is test strips.
Both oat and milk contains a lot of sugar on its own. So there is no need to add any. You can measure the amount of sugar and also its type by chemically separating the sugar from the rest of the food and then measure it out. There are also various ways of measuring it in less accurate but faster ways for use to check the assembly line. It is important to check this because oat contains a lot of fiber and starch which under certain conditions, such as when boiled or crushed, may break down into different forms of sugar. If these processes are not done correctly you get different types of sugars and different amounts which does affect the taste, texture and the dietary values.
A lot of things have sugar in it already, natural sugars. Those sugars don’t count for the “no sugars added” which only count for additives done by the manufacturer. That is why you can have products that day no sugars added on the package but still have sugars in them.
If I give you a cup of all natural, homemade **maple syrup**, it’s “no sugar added”. I didn’t add any sugar. It will also be about… eighty grams of sugar. Because that maple sap was loaded with sugar when I took it out of the tree.
An apple, same thing; you don’t have to add any sugar to an apple, it has sugar in it when it grew on the tree.
A box of lucky charms cereal? They added a bunch of sugar when they made the cereal.
Oats? Not much as much sugar as pure maple syrup, not even s much as an apple, but a little bit.
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