No. Added sugars already sit inside the total-sugars figure. Treating the two lines as separate ingredients overcounts the amount in your food. The indentation matters: “includes” identifies a part of the total.
Read the relationship first
Imagine a yogurt label showing 18 g total sugars, including 6 g added sugars, per 150 g pot. That means the example has 12 g of sugars outside the added-sugars category: 18 − 6 = 12. It does not contain 24 g total sugars. This calculation describes the printed categories; it does not identify individual ingredients or how each sugar was produced.
What changes with half a pot?
For a uniform product, half the labeled amount gives 9 g total sugars and 3 g added sugars. Both lines scale together. The portion still has 9 g total, not 12 g. If you compare it with another yogurt, put the same chosen portion beside both total and added amounts.
Keep the useful question separate
If you want to compare added sugars, compare that line directly. If you want total carbohydrate, use the total-carbohydrate line instead of adding carbohydrate and sugar. More detail does not create more food. A missing added-sugars figure on a restaurant table is unknown; subtracting it from total sugars cannot recover it.
Before saving your notes, check that the parts do not exceed their total. The FDA explanation linked below supports the label relationship. The invented numbers here let you practise it without implying that a particular yogurt has this composition.
Sources and example boundaries
- FDA: added sugars
Added sugars are part of total sugars, not an additional amount to add.
All food figures and prices in the worked example are invented to explain the method. They are not restaurant nutrition, tested recipes, shopping prices or personal dietary advice. Use the current label for the product you actually have.