Sugar Nutrition Facts, Calories and Carbs

Granulated sugar, also called white sugar or table sugar, is refined sucrose crystallized from the juice of sugarcane or sugar beets. Refining removes the molasses and nearly everything else, so cane sugar and beet sugar are both essentially pure sucrose with the same nutrition. A "cane sugar" label only tells you the plant source. USDA's granulated sugar record, used here, covers all of these names.

• Brown sugar is white sugar with molasses, which makes it moist and slightly lower in calories per gram. See brown sugar for its own values.
• Powdered (confectioners') sugar is granulated sugar ground fine, usually with a little cornstarch to stop caking. A cup weighs far less than a cup of granulated sugar.
• Superfine (caster) sugar is the same sucrose in smaller crystals that dissolve faster.
• Turbinado and demerara ("raw") sugars are less refined, with larger golden crystals that keep a little molasses. Their nutrition is close to white sugar.

Sugar does more than sweeten. Creamed with butter, its crystals trap air that helps cakes and cookies rise. It holds on to water, which keeps baked goods soft, and it browns and caramelizes in the oven. It slows gluten formation for a more tender crumb, feeds yeast in bread dough, and in jams and preserves it binds water and helps the fruit set. Cutting sugar in a recipe changes texture and shelf life, not only sweetness.

Every gram of sugar you add to a recipe counts as both Total Sugars and Added Sugars on the panel. Weigh it in grams and enter it in the label generator, which carries it to the "Includes Added Sugars" line and its %DV. Packaged sugar sold on its own is a special case: FDA guidance lets single-ingredient sugars omit the grams of added sugars while still showing the %DV for added sugars. In the ingredient list it is simply "sugar" (or "cane sugar" if you want to name the source); the ingredient formatter orders it by weight. The reference amount for sugar is in the RACC lookup.