Eating dried fruits like raisins banana chips is an easy way for me to get some extra fruit in my diet. I know eating lots of fruit is good for me. However, I am curious about why dried fruits are higher in sugar content than regular fresh fruits. Can you explain this?
Maren - About.com User
The more common reason that dried fruits will usually have more calories and sugar is because the dehydration process removes so much of the water normally found in the fruit. That missing water would normally make the fresh fruit larger than the dried fruit, so there would be more pieces of dried fruit in the same serving size. For example, one grape has seven calories and one raisin has seven calories, however one cup of grapes has about 60 calories, and a cup of raisins has over 400 calories. This doesn't happen because the raisin company added sugar, it happened because without the water, the raisins take up a lot less space. More raisins fit into one cup so that means one cup of raisins has more sugar and calories than grapes.
The sugar listed on the nutrient facts label on dried fruit packages is not table sugar, unless it is listed as an added sugar. The sugar in dried fruit is fructose and glucose, the sugars that are naturally found in the fruit. Make sure to read labels before you buy the dried fruits, the ingredient list on the package will state whether sugar is added or not.
