After coming across this surprising ‘fact’ about lemons and strawberries, I thought I just had to write about it. According to an internet claim, lemons contain more sugar than strawberries! Now, isn’t that shocking? Lemons are so sour you’d think they contained no sugar at all, and yet they contain more sugar than sweet strawberries.
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(Estimated reading time: 5 minutes) In a rush? Click here to zoom to the key summary points at the bottom of the article. But don’t forget to bookmark this page and come back later or you’ll be missing a lot of information!
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Is it true? What do you think? Go with your gut on this one, folks. It’s not true. It’s just one of those little factoids that people want to believe because it subverts our expectations and makes life more interesting. And, wellness experts and food fear alarmists can use it as a counter to the supposed amazing health benefits of lemon juice by saying, nope, lemons contain sugar so they are bad for you and can’t possibly be healthy. Whatever works to get you noticed!
Strawberries Definitely Contain More Sugar Than Lemons
It’s so easy to verify these kinds of claims. You can go to the USDA Food Composition database and do a search for lemons and strawberries, for example. This will get you a number of different results but in all of them, you will find that strawberries indeed contain more sugar than lemons, just as you would have expected before coming across this ‘astounding nutrition fact.’ Or, you can simply type in ‘lemon nutrition’ and ‘strawberries nutrition’ to Google to find a breakdown of both. You can check different amounts to compare, but checking for a 100-gram amount for both, we get 2.5 grams sugar for lemons and 4.9 grams of sugars for strawberries, almost 5 grams. That’s a whole lot more sugar in strawberries.
Not All Carbohydrates are Sugars
All carbohydrates are not sugars, and some of that extra carbohydrate in lemons is fiber. Strawberries contain 2 grams of dietary fiber per 100 grams while lemons contain 2.8 grams. Taking the math a bit further, we find 3.7 grams of complex carbohydrates (not sugars) in lemons and 1.1 in strawberries. So, while it is true that lemons contain more carbohydrates than strawberries, they do not contain more simple sugars.
However, here is where we have to stop using 100-gram amounts! Sure, it is technically true that lemons contain more complex carbohydrates (starches) than strawberries. This is another reason why they are not as sweet. However, we we would never eat 100 grams of lemon or even one cup of lemon. We typically use comparatively small amounts of lemon juice in food or in drinks and, in the case of drinks, we usually add a lot of sugar to make them palatable. For example, it takes about 3 to 4 tablespoons of lemon juice to make a glass of lemonade. Assuming you thoroughly squeeze two lemons to get that juice (it could be less), there is still no comparison to, say, a serving of strawberries, at around 150 grams. A serving of lemon is typically considered one fruit but even two doesn’t come close to a serving of strawberries.
So, to make a case about the actual amount of carbohydrates or sugars in lemon on a per gram basis compared to any fruit is a red herring. It is important to consider the amounts typically consumed when making such comparisons. Regardless, the primary claim, that lemons contain more sugar, is not true.
But, the reason I chose to write this up is not that I was surprised the claim existed. Heck, I’m not even interested in why it got started. What I have to wonder is why most people do not instantly question why lemons are being compared particularly to strawberries. Why not some other sweet fruit?
My point is that the very specific nature of the claim points to its falsehood. A general claim like ‘lemons contain more sugar than many sweet-tasting fruits’ should actually be more believable. And this should be a good clue for you when you come across similar claims in the future. The more specific (and therefore arbitrary?) the claim, the less likely it is grounded in truth. Choosing a sweet-tasting fruit with which to compare lemons makes the claim more surprising and thus makes the headlines more likely to be clicked on and shared.
Key Summary Points For “Lemons Contain More Sugar Than Strawberries?”
- A surprising internet claim states that lemons contain more sugar than strawberries, even though lemons are very sour.
- While claims like this are great clickbait, it is not true. Strawberries contain almost twice as much sugar as lemons.
- Lemons do contain carbohydrates, which is probably what sparked the claim. They do not contain more simple sugars.
- Claims like this often use arbitrary specific comparisons, this time strawberries, to make them seem more accurate and surprising even though the claims are false.
- A per-gram comparison between lemons and strawberries is misleading since we typically consume lemons in small amounts while a serving of strawberries is much larger.
- Claims like “lemons contain more sugar than strawberries” are designed to get attention regardless of whether they are accurate.
- Always be skeptical of highly specific and surprising claims. The more specific the comparison, the more likely it is to be misleading or false. Always verify nutrition claims using reliable sources.
