Sugar quiz: How much sugar is in our food?

Updated March 21, 2016 09:51:37

The World Health Organisation wants us to limit our sugar intake to six teaspoons (25 grams) a day, but do you know how much of it is hiding in some of our most popular groceries?

Why six teaspoons?

Because this is what the World Health Organisation (WHO) wants us to aim for.

In its updated guidelines for sugar consumption the global health body encourages us to consume no more than 10 per cent of our kilojoules from added or free sugars, but they also encourage us to go further, saying a reduction to 5 per cent of our kilojoules would have greater health benefits.

The average daily kilojoule intake for Australian adults of 8700, and 5 per cent of this (435 kilojoules) is roughly equivalent to the kilojoules you get from six teaspoons of sugar (420 kilojoules).

While very few of us are average and nor are our energy needs, Associate Professor Tim Crowe says "no matter how big or small you are the six teaspoons is a good target to aim for".

Is sugar toxic?

There are two reasons why the WHO wants us to limit the amount of sugar we eat and drink:

• it contains extra kilojoules (that most of us don't need)
• it's bad for our teeth.

It might come as surprise that the WHO expert panel focused on weight gain and dental health in its guidelines. After all, we're often told sugar is responsible for many of the health conditions we face, from type 2 diabetes and depression to heart disease and higher cholesterol.

But there is ongoing debate about whether the problem with our diets is just sugar, or whether it's processed foods that contain large amounts of sugar, salt and unhealthy fats. Many of those working in nutrition say it's not just about the sugar in our processed foods, but the company that it keeps.

Professor Crowe says the biggest problem with sugar is that it causes weight gain, and it's this weight gain that leads to ill health.

"There are some very loud voices trying to convince sugar is the cause of every disease we are suffering from. Apart from excess weight and dental caries (cavities), the evidence for most of the other conditions having direct evidence is quite limited," he said.

Sugars ain't sugar

One of the biggest problems with sugar is that often we're not even aware that we're consuming it. You probably know when it's in a treat, but there's plenty of sugar in foods many of us eat every day; think breakfast cereal, juice and flavoured yogurt.

Identifying how much sugar is in these foods is difficult, as it appears on the label of processed foods as sugars. Sugars are a sub-group of carbohydrates, such as glucose, sucrose, lactose and fructose.

When many of us talk about sugar, we actually mean sucrose, which comes from cane sugar. Sucrose is just one example of the free sugars the WHO expert panel found have the strongest impact on our health.

WHO defines free sugars as those "added to foods by the manufacturer, cook, or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups and fruit juices". Some of the names for added sugar that you will find on food labels include: dextrose, fructose, glucose, honey, maple syrup, sucrose, malt, maltose, sucrose.

The WHO guidelines don't relate to the sugars found naturally in a range of foods that health bodies are encouraging us to eat more of. Fruit, vegetables and dairy foods all contain sugars, and these are often referred to as intrinsic sugars.

There's a vast difference between added sugar and intrinsic sugar, says Professor Amanda Lee, who led the working group that wrote Australia's dietary guidelines.

"Intrinsic sugar is really not a problem. Because fruit and milk are so essential for our health and wellbeing, you have to have those. Those foods are associated with positive health outcomes," she said.

The exception is the intrinsic fruit sugars you get from juice. These "work like added sugar," Professor Lee says, but "if it's in the fruit itself and eaten with the fibre and the whole fruit, that sugar is not a worry".

Fructose is often singled out as the main offender when it comes to negative health consequences. Fructose, from high fructose corn syrup, is a common form of sweetener used in the manufacturing of processed food and drink in the US. But if you're getting fructose from a banana, go for it.

Why did we single out these foods?

We went to the Australian Health Survey to see what foods and drinks we consume every day. We chose to focus on those items that were more likely to contain free sugars, so we didn't include fresh foods — such as fruit, vegetables and meat — or processed foods that contain minimal added sugar such as bread or pasta. We also chose to focus on those foods known to be treats, as well as some many of us consider everyday food choices.

From there we went to the 2014 Retail World Annual Report to find out which of these products were the most popular in their category. Based on that we chose to include in the following items.

To make the quiz easier to do we chose the logical serving amount that contains roughly 25 grams of sugar - below are the actual amounts of sugar contained in each of those foods:

• Coke: 200mls contains 26.6 grams of sugar
• Weet-Bix: 45 biscuits contains 24.5 grams of sugar
• Nutri-Grain: 93.3 grams contains 24.9 grams of sugar
• Golden Circle orange juice: 333.3mls contains 25.9 grams of sugar
• Tip Top raisin toast: 4 pieces contains 22.8 grams of sugar
• Yoplait strawberry yoghurt: 175 grams contains 23.6 grams of sugar
• Cottees strawberry jam: 5 teaspoons contains 24.9 grams of sugar
• Heinz baked beans: 560 grams contains 24.7 grams of sugar
• Heinz tomato ketchup: 105mls contains 27.1 grams of sugar
• Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar: 42.9 grams contains 24.5 grams of sugar

Credits

• Reporting: Claudine Ryan
• Design & photography: Ben Spraggon
• Development: Colin Gourlay
• Production: Matt Liddy

We'd like to acknowledge the expert advice and assistance of Tim Crowe, Associate Professor in Nutrition in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at Deakin University, Amanda Lee, Professor in the School of Public Health and Social Work and School of Exercise and Nutrition Science at Queensland University of Technology, Catherine Saxelby, accredited nutritionist, and Caroline Salisbury, consultant dietitian.

Topics: diet-and-nutrition, health, australia

First posted March 17, 2016 16:20:21