Why some Whole30-approved pantry items still have sugar on their labels?

[mambodonkey]

Hi everyone,

 

Newbie here.  My husband and I are on the 4th day and we are still going strong.  I just checked out the Whole30 Pantry Stocking list here http://whole30.com/downloads/whole30-pantry.pdfand I am a bit confused about some of them obviously have sugar on the label but they are recommended?  A few examples:

• Unsweetened Apple Sauce brand such as Santa Cruise- I didn't see an unsweetened option in their website.  The hyperlink took me directly to the cups here which is listed with 11g of sugar content http://www.santacruzorganic.com/products/apple-sauce/apple-sauce-cups
• Artisana coconut butter, again, listed with 2g of sugar http://www.artisanaorganics.com/coconut/coconut-butter/
• Dry fruits- raisins, dry dates and figs- aren't they all have crazy amount of sugar on their label?

Basically I am wondering whether fruit-based items such as apple sauce and dry dates will always have their natural sugar content on the label, so... as long as no additive sugar they are okay?  I am not sure how to explain the sugar content on the coconut butter, is it the same thing as well? I'm NOT planning to eat them as dessert but thought I could moderately use them in the cooking as sweetener .  If someone could please help solve the mystery it would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks!

 

[kirkor]

>as long as no additive sugar they are okay?

Correct. Many foods have sugar in them (apple, tomato, etc.) which would show up in the nutritional info as a certain amount of grams of sugar, but not the ingredients list (where they can be quite sneaky).

[evaq]

Kirkor hit it on the head. I think you're confusing an item's nutritional value with the ingredients list. How the food is broken down in the body = nutritional value. What goes into making the food = ingredients list. That's why a naked apple can have no added sugar, yet have "sugars" in the nutritional value.

[mambodonkey]

Thank you both very much!