The current debate about traffic lights on labels is worth calling out a danger that affects the health of children and adolescents in particular, diabetes in cans. How much sugar is found in beverages? Brief analysis to follow.
8 carbonated soft drinks compared
A 33ml can of Coca-Cola, the most popular sugary, carbonated beverage on the planet, contains the beauty-so to speak-of 35 grams of sugar. Equal to 39% of the daily requirement of an average adult. (1)
Pepsi-Cola is even sweeter, thanks to 35.8 g of sucrose in the 330 ml can, to reach 40 percent of the daily ration for an adult individual.
Fair Trade-certified Ubuntu Cola is only slightly less sugary, with 31.2 g per can occupying 28 percent of the recommended threshold. And when we deviate from the cola aroma as well, it varies little.
Even Fanta, also produced by Coca-Cola, reaches 38.9 g of sugar. That is, 43% of the daily limit given to preserve health. Therefore, the note of patriotism offered by Italian oranges (12 percent of the total drink) is not worth reducing the focus on the product’s nutritional profile.
The very Italian Chinotto Neri, in turn, contains 38.3 g of sugars expressing 42% of the Reference Intakes for adult consumers.
Slightly less sweet is Schweppes tonic water, with only 29.4 g of sucrose or 33 percent of the fateful Reference Intakes specified by the European legislature. (2)
In contrast, the can of Sprite (Coca-Cola) has a much lower sucrose content-6.3 grams-because its sweetness is ‘sweetened’ with acesulfame K, aspartame and neohesperidine DC. (3)
Dulcis in fundo Ferrero’s EstaThé – ranked third among the beverages examined, after Fanta and Chinotto Neri – with 36 grams of sugar in the 330 ml can. That is, 40 percent of the reference threshold for an adult.
Cause-effect relationships, ‘diabetes in a can’
Excessive consumption of sugar, saturated fat, and salt causes obesity, overweight, and related diseases that are now an epidemic and a threat. For the health and well-being of the population-beginning with children and adolescents-and for health care spending.
Type 2 diabetes is aplanetary emergency, with 5 million patients expected in Italy by 2030. And it is a sneaky disease, as it develops without symptoms to the point of causing serious health damage. The risk of contracting this form of diabetes increases substantially-according to 20-year studies, collected by Harvard University (4)-just by consuming one can a day of sugary drinks.
The United Nations has therefore emphasized the urgent need to reduce sugar in beverages, in the Decade for Action on Nutrition (2016-2025). Various initiatives have thus been taken in every corner of the planet, from taxing sugary drinks to label warnings. (5)
But there is chatter in Italy, about the hypothetical impact of this or that traffic light on our caciques’ exports. And the real problem, the social cost of canned diabetes and HFSS foods, is overlooked. (6) Which will remain on our consciences, as well as on public and family budgets.
Notes
(1) The reg. EU 1169/11, gives average reference intakes for adults, on a daily basis, as 2000 kcal including 90 grams of sugars (Annex XIII, Part B). 260 g total carbohydrates, 70 g total fat (of which 20 g saturated fatty acids), 50 g protein, 6 salt. The European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) at the time indicated 25 g as the so-called Dietary Reference Intake related to fiber
(2) See footnote 1
(3) However, the safety of synthetic sweeteners, so-called Non-caloric Artificial Sweeteners, is widely debated. See, for example, the study published in Nature, doi:10.1038/nature13793,
(4) Cf. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/soft-drinks-and-disease/
(5) Instead, the alcoholic beverage manufacturers’ lobby convinced the European Commission to maintain their exemption from the nutrition declaration and ingredient list requirements on labels
(6) High Fats, Sugars and Sodium. Beyond the partisan narrative of Big Food and Big Soda, the foods targeted by traffic lights are certainly not the traditional ones. Which maintain adequate spaces in the guidelines for healthy eating, all the more so in the context of the Mediterranean diet. Instead, traffic lights target unnecessary foods with unbalanced nutritional profiles, such as precisely carbonated drinks rather than chips or other HFSS snacks
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
