7 Foods You Had No Idea Were Loaded with Sugar

You've heard it over and over (and over) again: Added sugar is bad for you. In fact, "it's the root cause of obesity and most chronic disease," says Mark Hyman, M.D., director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and author of The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet Cookbook. "You name it, it's caused by sugar: Heart disease, cancer, dementia, type 2 diabetes, depression, and even acne, infertility, and impotence." And Americans, on average, are consuming way too much of it on a daily basis—152 pounds of sugar each year, which is roughly 22 teaspoons every day, says Hyman.

But try as we might, it just isn't that easy to quit. Not only are our bodies tossed into a vicious cycle of eat-more-want-more once they get a taste of the stuff, but we also don't really know where sugar is hiding, or what other aliases it goes by (hint: corn syrup, brown rice sugar, fructose, and cane juice crystals are just a few). "People are often flabbergasted to learn that, while they think they're doing a pretty good job eliminating sugars and carbohydrates, they're actually bombarding their bodies with calories from these sources," says David Perlmutter, M.D., a board-certified neurologist and author of Brain Maker.

So it's time to change that. Check out these foods we—and we're betting you—had no idea had tons of sugar lurking around.