We’re here once again using the WISEdata™ food database to look at about 119,000 foods (across the spectrum of processed foods) that contain added sugar of one type or another. 

In a previous study, we discovered that honey is the sixth most common added sugar by frequency, but the amount used per serving is lower than expected. This data posed the question: is honey being used in small amounts to provide a positive halo for the other added sugars in a given food product?

Our analysis shows that more often than not, a product sweetened with honey is also sweetened with at least one other type of added sugar. Below is an upset plot flagging when honey is used with other sweeteners (red boxes) or by itself (amber box). Adding together the red boxes, combining honey with other less desirable sweeteners is about 2.6 times more common than using honey as the only sweetener (5,404 products with honey and other sweeteners compared to 2,085 with honey as the sole sweetener). 

It appears that some processed foods might be using honey to pull attention away from the other sweeteners that they use.

If you would like access to our database, please send an email to WISEalliance@WISEcode.ai from your work email. And if you'd like to scan foods yourself with your phone, download the app on iOS or Google Play.