Americans consume three percent more total daily calories from sugar than current recommendations. Maternal diets high in sugar can cause obesity and diabetes mellitus. Objectives were to compare supplemental dietary sucrose to a protein alternative on maternal health and fetal programming utilizing a sow biomedical model. Pregnant sows (Landrace × Yorkshire, average BW = 222 ± 35 kg, n = 21) were fed a corn-soybean meal-based diet (CSM) at one percent BW at 0700 h daily from d 29 (± 1.47) to 111 (± 0.58) of gestation. Sows were randomly assigned to dietary supplement treatments: 126 g CSM (CON, n = 5), 110 g cooked ground beef (BEEF, n = 6), 85.5 g sucrose (SUCR, n = 5), or the combination of 54.8 g BEEF and 42.7 g SUCR (B+S, n = 5). Dietary supplements were fed three times daily from d 40 to 110 (± 0.58) of gestation. A repeated measures design was modeled using the MIXED procedure of SAS. Dietary treatment did not influence gestational BW (P ≥ 0.99), subcutaneous fat depth (P ≥ 0.09), blood chemistry panel (P ≥ 0.21), or total-, HDL-, or LDL-cholesterol, triglyceride, insulin, or C-reactive protein serum concentrations (P ≥ 0.07). Dietary treatment did not influence sow organ or lean tissue weight (P ≥ 0.42). Compared to CON, BEEF fetuses had increased BW (P = 0.01), crown to rump length (P = 0.01), nose to crown length (P < 0.01), heart girth (P = 0.02), and abdominal girth (P = 0.05). Dietary treatment did not influence fetal growth characteristics of median weight male and female fetuses (P ≥ 0.23). Compared to BEEF, SUCR fetuses had heavier liver weights (P = 0.04). Dietary treatment by sex interaction occurred for fetal kidney weight with BEEF males having heavier kidney weights compared BEEF females (P = 0.03). Dietary treatment did not influence other fetal organ or lean tissue weights (P ≥ 0.09). These results suggest beef or sucrose supplementation at 1.49 or 1.16 grams per kilogram BW per day, respectively, from day 40 to 110 of gestation had minimal impact on maternal health and fetal development.