Wave 1
Added sugars and industrial syrups
How Everykind counts added sugars, when we caveat-keep vs cut, and which sweeteners we prefer on labels.
Not medical advice. No cure claims. Inclusion rules live on The Standard.
What it is
Added sugars are sweeteners put into a product — white sugar, jaggery, honey, dates syrup, glucose syrup, invert syrup, fruit-juice concentrate used to sweeten, and similar. We count all of them. “No refined sugar” still counts if jaggery or dates supply the sweetness.
Why it is a concern
- Cereal, muesli, granola, and kids snacks often look “millet-healthy” while sugar sits near 20%+.
- Industrial syrups and artificial sweeteners used as the main sweet story fail our junk-marker spirit.
- Buyers deserve a visible caveat when a Keep is only lightly sweetened — not a sugar-free halo.
Where it shows up in our catalog
Locked snack sugar ladder:
- Prefer: dates, jaggery, honey
- Caveat-keep around ≲15% added (light-sweet boundary)
- Hard cut cereal/muesli/granola around ~20%+ and industrial syrups / artificial sweeteners as the main sweet story
Examples:
- Caveat-keep: Early Foods Multigrain Millet Jaggery Cookies (~15%), Dry Fruit Jaggery Cookies, Sai Akshayam mixture (dry grapes), TWT Peanut Spread with Dates
- Pack-verify: Satvyk Multi-Millet Jaggery Cookies — jaggery % not stated on page
- Already cut: Slurrp Farm Choco Crunch (~23% sugar), True Elements / Yoga Bar sugar-forward museli lines
- Still free sugar when used as pantry sweetener: Organic jaggery — listed with that caveat
Safer alternatives we already list
- Unsweetened: The Whole Truth Unsweetened Peanut Butter, AS-IT-IS / Pintola / Alpino / Urban Platter natural PB lines (unsweetened SKUs only)
- Plain roasted makhana and allowlist-oil savory chips without sugar seasoning dumps
What we do not claim
Jaggery and honey are still sugars. We do not market cookies as health foods. No diabetes or weight-loss claims. See snacks sugar rules.