Total sugars vs added sugars
The sugar figure on a nutrition label is total sugars: it includes sugar added as syrups and sauces, but also the natural lactose in milk. So a plain latte with no syrup still shows several grams of sugar.
The FDA Daily Value for added sugars is 50g a day. At 5g of total sugars or less, every drink here contains no more than a tenth of that. Most contain even less added sugar, because part of the total comes from milk.
What a low-sugar drink looks like
5g of sugar is roughly one teaspoon. 6 drinks on this list have no sugar at all, including Premium Roast Coffee, Diet Pepsi, Lipton Unsweetened Iced Tea and Mtn Dew Baja Blast Zero Sugar. Anything above zero usually comes from a splash of milk or a little added sweetener.
Zero sugar doesn’t always mean unsweetened: diet sodas and sugar-free syrups use non-sugar sweeteners instead.
How to use this list
The table starts with the lowest-sugar drink at Taco Bell. Re-sort by calories or caffeine, or open any drink to compare sizes. Sugar rises with size, especially in milk-based drinks.