‘Fructose’, ‘dextrose’, ‘panela’ – these are just some of the confusing words food companies use for added sugar, making it difficult to know how much of it is hiding in what we eat and drink.
Can you send us photos of the food and drinks you buy, highlighting where the added sugar is hiding on the label? If we can show Ministers just how widespread this problem really is ahead of their big June meeting, we can convince them to introduce added sugar labelling.
Here’s what you can do:
- Find a packaged product in your fridge or pantry*.
- Look for the added sugar hiding in the ingredients list – you can use our guide at the bottom of this email.
- Grab a highlighter or pen and circle or underline the name for addedsugar . You can also do this using the highlight function on your smartphone.
- Take a photo of your highlighted ingredients list.
- Send your photo to addedsugar@choice.com.au along with the name of the product. Here’s an example of what it might look like:
Here are the words used to describe added sugar in ingredients lists:
- Agave nectar/syrup
- Barley malt
- Beet sugar
- Blackstrap molasses
- Brown sugar
- Cane sugar
- Carob syrup
- Caster sugar
- Coconut sugar
- Coffee sugar crystals
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Corn syrup
- Date sugar/syrup
- Demerara
- Dextrose
- Evaporated cane juice
- Fructose
- Fruit juice
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Glucose
- Golden syrup * Grape sugar/syrup
- High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
- Honey
- Icing sugar
- Invert sugar
- Lactose
- Malt
- Maltrose
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Palm sugar
- Panela
- Powdered sugar
- Rapadura
- Raw sugar
- Rice syrup
- Sucrose
- Sugar
- Treacle
- Turbinado
- White sugar
Click here to see the list in an image you can save and print.
This is a creative way to get ministers to listen – and to make this work, we’d love your help getting as many photos as possible. Remember to send your photos to addedsugar@choice.com.au (and highlight the added sugar).
