For example, most fruits have around 10-20g of sugar per cup of fruit. How is this sugar any different than if I were to eat a granola bar with 10g of added sugar? Or have a drink with added sugar? The USDA says to limit added sugar consumption, but says nothing about limiting regular sugar consumption. Is added sugar chemically any different from sugar found in natural foods?
In: Chemistry
What you’re seeing is a compromise that was reached on labeling between the FDA and the fruit industry.
There is a general consensus that more sugar = more bad, regardless of its source. The FDA wanted to highlight how much sugar food contained on the nutrition labels. Fruits in general, and fruit juice in particular, would have looked bad with a nutrition label that overly highlighted how much sugar was in something.
The compromise that the FDA reached was to allow products to list how much sugar they naturally contain and how much sugar has been added.
Drinking 24 ounces of apple juice gets you about the same amount of sugar as drinking 12 ounces of a refreshing, ice cold Coca-Cola®. There is no meaningful difference between drinking those two things from a health perspective. Obviously, if you’re limiting yourself to a single, 12 ounce drink, the apple juice contains half the sugar and would therefore be better for you.
But ya, 1 gram of sugar = 1 gram of sugar from a health perspective, regardless of where you get it from.
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