Added Sugar Limit Calculator

How it is calculated

Two limits are shown side by side. The general limit caps added sugar at 10% of daily energy: grams = calories × 0.10 ÷ 4, using 4 kcal per gram of sugar. It is also converted to teaspoons with tsp = grams ÷ 4.2. The fixed limit does not depend on calories at all: 36 g for men and 25 g for women. Any sex value other than male, including an empty one, gives the female 25 g figure. Calories must be a positive number; zero or a negative value shows no result. Grams are rounded to whole numbers, teaspoons to two decimals. The fixed figures are the American Heart Association's; other health bodies and countries use different numbers, and only added sugar is counted, not the sugar naturally present in fruit or plain milk.

Common mistakes

• Counting total sugar from the label instead of added sugar. Fruit and plain milk sugars are not part of the limit; use the added sugars line.
• Treating the 10% limit as the safe number when it is far above the fixed limit. At 2200 kcal it is 55 g against 36 g, so the two answers can differ by a wide margin.
• Forgetting that the fixed limit ignores calories and falls back to the female 25 g figure unless male is selected.
• Entering weekly calories or kilojoules. The input is daily kcal, and the percentage limit scales directly with it.
• Reading the teaspoon value as a measuring-spoon recipe. It is simply grams divided by 4.2, and it is only given for the general limit, not for the fixed one.