Hi guys! Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you all enjoyed some great food, fun and laughter. There’s nothing like the holiday season.

Now that we’re coming out of our respective food comas and trying to get back on track, I want to focus on a subject that I’ve been curious about for awhile - finding out which fruits have the highest and lowest naturally-occurring sugars.

While my son tolerates fruit at the moment (he’s 18 months old and is a carb-lover!), my daughter loves almost every fruit out there and will often choose fruit over other food groups.

Like most parents, I’m usually happy that she is eating fruit instead of candy or processed food, so I haven’t researched this topic.  

However, that changed the other day when I read that one cup of mangos has a whopping 23 grams of sugar per cup. Whoa! So let’s dive into this a bit.

First, let’s focus on the fruits that have the highest amounts of naturally occurring sugars.  (For reference, a regular-sized Snickers bar has around 27 grams of sugar.)

• Lychees: About 29 grams of sugar per cup
• Figs - About  27 grams of sugar per cup
• Mangos - About 23 grams of sugar per cup
• Cherries - About 18 grams of sugar per cup
• Grapes - About 15 grams of sugar per cup
• Bananas:  About 18 grams of sugar per cup, sliced

However it’s important to note that many of these fruits still offer great benefits, such as lots of fiber, antioxidants and Vitamins A & C.

Now let’s take a look at the fruits with the lowest naturally-occurring sugars:

• Avocados: An entire avocado has 1 gram of sugar
• Cranberries: About 4 grams of sugar per cup
• Raspberries: About 5 grams of sugar per cup
• Kiwis:  About 6 grams of sugar per Kiwi
• Blackberries:  About 7 grams of sugar per cup
• Strawberries: About 7 grams of sugar per cup

There you have it!  I’d say we’re still doing pretty well if we choose a piece of fruit over a candy bar, but it’s nice to have this information at hand, especially if we’re choosing fruits at the grocery to buy for our kids.

Hit me up with any questions or suggestions for a blog post topic at Crystal@hugabugg.com!