BATON ROUGE - Minimizing added sugar intake is hard but even harder is recognizing how much added sugar is in an everyday diet.

"Anytime food is processed, there are certain things that are added. And it's often sugar … or salt,” Dr. Donald Hensrud, director of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program, said.

When trying to identify how much added sugar is in packaged food, look at the nutrition food label.

"And in many things you wouldn't even suspect — some sauces, some dips, some spreads — there's added sugars in almost every category of food products out there,” Hensrud said.

Some added sugars can come from the most unexpected places; certain salad dressings, condiments, canned soups, granola and protein bars can be sneaky sources of added sugar.

"It's been shown that, in many people, the amount of calories they get from added sugars is quite significant,” Hensrud said.

Dr. Hensrud suggests paying close attention to food labels and trying to consume foods that contain natural sugars, like fruits, which are low in calories and contain vitamins and minerals.