New Study Shows Food is Getting Sweeter

FOOD companies have doubled the amount of sugar they add to some of their most popular products — including soups and cereals — according to an excellent article by my colleague Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas in tomorrow's Sunday Times.

"Some of the biggest increases in sugar have been in breakfast cereals, and even wholemeal bread has become far sweeter", he reports. "It now routinely contains nearly a teaspoonful of sugar in every three slices."

Experts warn that ....

the trend, which can be traced back over three decades, is likely to get worse. In 1978 Kellogg’s Special K had 9.6g of sugar per 100g, but this has now nearly doubled to 17g — a similar level to vanilla ice-cream. The Sunday Times discovered the increases in sugar levels by analysing data in an industry handbook on the nutritional value of foods — McCance and Widdowson’s The Composition of Foods, which has editions covering 1978 to 2002. The newspaper says: "The 1978 edition shows that cans of tomato soup contained on average 2.6g of sugar per 100g in 1978. By contrast, many soups today have double that amount. A can of Waitrose tomato soup on sale last week had 6.4g of sugar per 100g, with almost three spoonfuls of sugar in every bowl.The amount of sugar in a typical loaf of wholemeal bread rose from 2.1g per 100g in 1978 to 2.8g per 100g in 2002....  Kellogg’s has increased the sugar content in some of its bestselling cereals. Cornflakes now have 8g of sugar per 100g compared with 7.4g in 1978; All-Bran has 17g compared with 15.4g in 1978, and Rice Krispies have 10g of sugar, up 1g since 1978."

Citing soaring levels of obesity and diabetes, the British Medical Journal warned in 2005: "Sugar is as dangerous as tobacco and, in terms of world health, far more important." 

For full story, click here.

Comments

[Carlyle Braden]

Because they have to lower the fat or salt content, they up the sugar content to make the product taste better. Good for diabetics, eh!