7 common breakfast foods that have more sugar than a Snickers bar

When done right, breakfast can be amazing. If it's filled with nutrients you need—protein, fiber, healthy fats, and complex carbs—it can give you the sustained energy you need to own your day like the boss lady you are.

If, on the other hand, your breakfast is low-key packing in a butt-load of added sugar (as many breakfast foods are wont to do) you may experience a brief energy boost that rapidly spirals into a mid-morning crash. Napping at your desk before noon? Not ideal.

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Now you might be thinking, even if a breakfast food has a lot of sugar, it can't possibly have THAT much sugar, right? Well, in fact, many morning favorites have the just as much or more added sugar than a fun-size Snickers bar (you know, those mini versions people hand out on Halloween).

Courtesy of Mars

Before we get to those breakfasts (some of which are typically touted as healthy, others which aren't), it's important to differentiate between added sugars and natural sugars. Naturally occurring sugars are those that, yes, naturally occur in things like fruits and dairy—think fructose and lactose. Consuming naturally occurring sugars is less problematic than consuming added sugars because the other nutrients present in fruits (fiber and complex carbohydrates) slow digestion, which can keep you from experiencing the same blood sugar spike you might get with added sugars. And having sugar for breakfast isn't bad, as long as it's those naturally occurring sugars you're reaching for. Even with naturally occurring sugars, it's best to keep your intake under 36 grams.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell which sugars in a food are naturally occurring and which are added, but the Food And Drug Administration will be updating nutrition labels by 2018, and these new labels will make it easier to determine which sugars are which. In the meantime, watch that nutrition label for the names added sugars tend to hide under—things like sucrose and glucose, evaporated cane sugar, and sweeteners like honey and syrup.

And when you spot them, you'll want to aim to avoid them. In fact, for women, the current recommendation is to consume no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day. And some of these breakfast foods have half as much or more sugar than that. Don't believe us? Take a look below.