Can You Eat 5 Teaspoons of Sugar All At Once?

You may be surprised how much sugar you eat at one sitting. It’s hard for most people to imagine getting out the sugar bowl and digging out five teaspoons then eating the sugar all at once. And that’s only five! But you may be even more surprised to learn that some people are eating ten teaspoons and more in one snack or meal! Look below and you’ll find that one commonly eaten food contains 28 teaspoons of sugar!

Thanks to the tremendous power of the sugar industry, the USDA says it’s better if we limit our consumption of sugar to ten teaspoons a day. This number alone is absolutely ridiculous when you realize that refined sugar is a poison and we are not constitutionally constructed to eat it!

Here’s how much sugar you’re consuming when you eat these foods:

Snickers bar, 2.1 oz.    5¾ teaspoons of sugar
Lowfat fruit-flavored yogurt, 8 oz.    7 teaspoons of sugar
Entenmann’s Chocolate Fudge Cake, 3 oz.    8½ teaspoons of sugar
Pepsi, 12 oz.    10¼ teaspoons of sugar
Pancake syrup, ¼ cup    10¼ teaspoons of sugar
Hostess Lemon Fruit Pie, 4½ oz.    11½ teaspoons of sugar
McDonald’s Vanilla Shake,* 20 oz.    12 teaspoons of sugar
Cinnabon,* 7½ oz.    12¼ teaspoons of sugar
Sunkist Orange Soda, 12 oz.    13 teaspoons of sugar
Dairy Queen Mr. Misty Slush,* 32 oz.    28 teaspoons of sugar

Sources: Manufacturers, USDA, CSPI analyses and/or estimates.
Center for Science in the Public Interest