It's a bit more than that. Drinking the juice of an orange would be free sugar, but eating the orange whole would not. I'm not a nutritionists or anything, but my understanding is the foods not counted as free sugar typically have the sugar bound up in a bunch of other stuff, so it takes longer to digest.
tharinock t1_j8otybk wrote
Reply to comment by KeepTangoAndFoxtrot in Study finds link between ‘free sugar’ intake and cardiovascular disease by YoanB
It's a bit more than that. Drinking the juice of an orange would be free sugar, but eating the orange whole would not. I'm not a nutritionists or anything, but my understanding is the foods not counted as free sugar typically have the sugar bound up in a bunch of other stuff, so it takes longer to digest.