ADDED SUGAR: want to help us improve food labels? Follow this thread for how you can help

Do you think that added sugar labelling will be more effective than total sugar labelling? Why?

I am not bagging it either, more and accurate data is always good but I see no reason, based on evidence so far, to assume that this approach will actually change behaviour very much.

As Linda has alluded, campaigns are sometimes designed around what you can get done, not what you want to get done.

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Just to be clear, we are supportive of keeping total sugar labelling. We just want to have additional information about added sugars.

For example, we have total fats and then saturated fats in the Nutritional Information Panel. You are more than welcome to look at either number, or both!

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Any added information that clarifies the additives to a product is useful. I already can see total sugars on products, but adding the additional added sugars to that label allows me to see if “empty” calories have been added (empty calories/kilojoules are typically sugars). When I can “see” the amount of addition I can 1) make an informed choice about the addition, 2) press the maker to adjust their usage of added sugar by not buying it and also by contacting them with my opinion, 3) choose to pick a product that has less added kilojoules while it might not taste the same as the one with more and thus would perhaps not have been the first choice otherwise.

Just to add to this I really hate how some additives can be given a code eg 650 or euro E650 and we then have to consult another reference to actually find out what has been added in layman’s terms (Zinc Acetate in 650’s case) or at least in some more understandable form of language.

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The Choice request for help to identify processes food products with labels revealing hidden sugar spurred me to explore the pantry and fridge.

So far it would seem a fruitless task.

Every item, more than a dozen I’ve looked at simple has a single line labelled ‘sugars’!
There are no other ingredients listed that could be a sugar.

I now assume all of the sugar is added!

Even the Woolies - ‘Pear Slices in Juice’ declare simply - sugars 6.7gm/100gms. And they’ve come all the way from South Africa :south_africa:?

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An article regarding the increase in life expectancy in Australia has dramatically slowed due mainly to obesity as our diets are poorer than they were 30 to 40 years ago.

Added sugar would have to be the No.1 factor.

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Having been to Chile a few years ago, their labelling makes sense, is easy to understand and does make one think when buying the product what is in it. Outlined our observations a after our return…

https://choice.community/t/choices-asks-to-improve-health-stars/14606/8?u=phb

While the Australian health stars are a small step in the right direction, the inclusion of information on high calories, salts, sugars, fats clearly on the label like in Chile is more confronting and also clearly shows some of the key (health) nutritional aspects of the food product.

In Australia it is very hard to know why the health stars were given and why they didn’t achieve 5 stars. It also assumes that the consumer understands something about nutrition when reading the remainder of the food labels ( which I suggest that almost all of us are unable to understand what is high or low in a particular food). The Chile stop signs clearly outline what is ‘wrong’ with the product.

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These are likely sugars naturally present in the fruit and juice and so are not added sugars so much as being intrinsic sugars (though juice added to a product could be added sugar if it wasn’t naturally present in the product, was concentrated or was simply not required). Tomatoes are also an example of intrinsic sugars rather than added but buy a bottle of tomato sauce and almost without exception it will have added sugars.

Then you can have a dish eg pea and ham soup from Campbells (R) ™ that would be naturally low in sugar but has much more than expected and in the ingredient list you will see items either called some variety of sugar eg sugar or brown sugar or some other name for the sugar eg corn syrup. In the pea and ham soup example comes this first part of the ingredient list and unsurprisingly more sugar than ham:
Split Peas (64%) Water, Carrots, Salt, Wheat Flour, Sugar, Ham (0.5%).

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Fructose - A Debate

A fourth option that apparently works given enough political will.

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A slide show of 19 breakfast cereals revealing their sugar content.

https://coach.nine.com.au/diet/australias-most-sugary-cereal/8c2fe5c0-af4c-4cab-a9cb-5ca51d604360#1

An article regarding research into the effectiveness of warning labels for sugar contents.

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Found a new and rather tricky one and spruiking “CLEAN INGREDIENTS THAT YOU CAN TRUST” in large across the front of the pack.

Ingredients: Organic Grass-fed Beef, Organic Coconut Aminos (Coconut Tree Sap, Sea Salt), Organic Apple Cider, Sea Salt, Black Pepper, Organic Beetroot Powder, Culture.

Contains 9% sugar and I was struggling to find out where it could possibly be coming from. Closer inspection of the ingredients would appear to be trying to hide the added sugar by calling it “Coconut Tree Sap” and nesting it within “Coconut Aminos”. Google tells me Coconut Tree Sap is basically palm sugar from a coconut tree.

It would seem trust is missing from the ingredients.

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What? No organic sea salt?

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hahaha.

Also interesting that “sea salt” is listed in the ingredients on it’s own and in the nested ingredients. Almost like they needed to add something to the palm sugar so they could nest it!

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I noticed a similar slight of hand with Milo. Nestle continues to promote the product as a health food on it’s web sites.

It equates 100ml of milk as having as much sugar as the recommended 20gm dose of Milo. The deception is to equate the lactose in milk as being the same as the sugars contained in Milo.

It’s also not evident why the two glasses of skim milk have different sugar content for the same volume. Is it better not go put skim milk in your Milo at all?

:musical_score: :notes: Just a spoon full of Milo a day! :rofl:

Not all sugars are the same.

P.S.
Visitors to the Milo owned web sites in search of knowledge be warned. You will be instantaneously offered the opportunity to become a myMilo supporter, and showed with all manner of healthy reasons to consume the product. Coles and Woolies on line may be the safest place to review the ingredients list.

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As sugar now appears to be the demon in obesity and as I’ve read appears in 70% of grocery items why not have a warning on all products, but especially on confectionery items and biscuits----as in grams of sugar per kilo.

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Hi @rsturgess,

The topic you posted in was dedicated to unit pricing. You might not have noticed this older one about sugar labelling, so I merged your post into it.

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An article regarding Australians’ sugar consumption.

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What is interesting is the contribution of store branded products. The consumer’s push for cheap supermarket food items, drives supermarkets to source the cheapest products for their store brands which are often high in sugar (salts and fats).

Cheapest may not necessarily mean nutritionally the best/the healthiest. Saving money now may have costly long term consequences.

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Thanks for that. If any of you can get hold of a copy the DVD “That sugar film” which is Australian made I suggest you take a look at it. From the recommended 6 teaspoons per day it goes on to show a soft drink in the U.S (Mountain Dew 1.25l contains 37.5 teaspoons)—it appears not to be available in Australia.

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