Most sugar-free products will warn of this fact on their packaging. Sweeteners cannot be broken down by the digestive system and will often cause laxative effects if eaten in significant amounts. While sweeteners are a helpful substitute for sugar as part of a calorie-controlled diet, or for diabetics looking to balance their blood sugar, sweeteners can often provide up to 1000 times the ‘sweetness’ detected by the taste buds, and continue or even exaggerate a dependency on that sweet taste. They are generally energy free, and therefore will only appear on the ingredients list. Sugars can be analysed from the ‘of which sugars’ section of your food label, but sweeteners can not. Anything over 5g per 100g is high in saturated fat. It’s possible to tell from your nutrition label how much saturate fat is in your packaged food and always aim for less than 1.5g per 100g. Therefore, concentrate on removing products like fizzy drinks / sugar-sweetened beverages, sweets, jellies, cakes, biscuits, breakfast cereals, hazelnut cappuccinos, caramel lattes, and honey drizzled on porridge or added to teas. Intrinsic sugar is not the priority when reducing your sugar intake. If it does not, this can be considered intrinsic sugar. That’s where you need to scan the ingredients to tell if the food contains added sugars. This means that food containing fruit or milk may be labelled amber or red.
Milk’s primary intrinsic sugar is lactose Therefore, no sugar has been added, so you can deduce that this 6g of sugar is intrinsic sugar.
However, ‘Of which sugars’ describes the total amount of sugars from all sources - it doesn’t discriminate between added sugars and intrinsic sugars.
Here’s how to make sense of it.įour nutrients: Fat, saturates, sugars, and salt. Neither is mandatory, so you may not see these on any products. There is the percentage reference intake (%RI) and there’s a traffic light system. There are two systems in use for front of pack labelling. Manufacturers can avoid listing sugar as the first ingredient by using multiple forms of sugar. Must be listed by majority ingredient in descending order. Below are some of the most frequently asked questions in relation to food labels, how to understand them, and how to be guided by them.īack of pack labelling is mandatory and must contain the following information by law:Īll of this must be expressed as per 100g/100ml.