What Does A Gram Of Sugar, Salt, Or Fat Really Look Like ... - Kitchn

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What Does a Gram of Sugar, Salt, or Butter Really Look Like?Chris PerezChris PerezChris is creative director of Left Right Media branding and marketing agency in Austin. As a photographer and former engineer, Chris enjoys covering topics at the intersection of art and science.updated Jun 17, 2024SavefacebookpinterestemailPage URLcommentsWe independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

I always check nutrition labels when I’m at the grocery store and use them to help pick the best option among the variety of pre-packaged foods I purchase. I check sugar, salt, and fat contents, but to me all those numbers (measured in grams) are an abstract relative. What does a gram of sugar—or salt, or fat—really look like? I went on a mission to find out:

We’re used to measuring things by volume here in the US, and adding butter, sugar, and salt to our recipes by cups and tablespoons. Since grams are a unit of weight, I pulled out my trusty kitchen scale for answers. Here’s what I discovered.

Quick Overview

How Much is a Gram of Sugar, Salt, and Butter ?

A gram of sugar is about 1/4 teaspoon by volume, 1 gram of sodium is about 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1 gram of butter is 1/4 teaspoon.

What Is a Gram of Sugar?

I used granulated white sugar for this experiment and expected it to take a whole teaspoon of the stuff to equate to a gram. Surprisingly though, a gram of sugar weighed in just a tad shy of 1/4 tsp by volume.

What Is a Gram of Salt?

A gram of salt clocked in at about 1/6 tsp, making it the heaviest ingredient. But salt is composed of chloride as well, with only 40% of its weight accounting for pure sodium. Doing some math there gives us about a 1/2 tsp of salt to amount to 1 gram of sodium.

What Is a Gram of Butter?

I used a stick of plain old unsalted butter for this test. It took 1/4 tsp of butter by volume to weigh 1 gram.

The next thing I wondered is what this all looks like in the amounts of some of the pre-packaged foods I purchase. So I got out a box of the Amy’s Apple Toaster Pops that I enjoy every now and then. 10 grams of sugar, 3.5 grams of fat in a single serving. Seeing things like that was a bit surprising. That’s a whole lot of sugar in that little toaster pastry!

Next, I decided to check the label on a bottle of soy sauce. I was always curious how much salt was really in a single serving. Per the label on a bottle of Kikkoman brand soy sauce 1 tablespoon of soy sauce has about 1/2 tsp of salt (960mg).

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