Sweeter and sweeter - breakfast cereal department
And the race is on... From the
Halifax Chronicle-Herald:
That morning cereal’s sweeter than you think
Food companies have doubled the amount of sugar they add to some of their most popular products including soups and cereals in an attempt to attract sweet-toothed customers.
Some of the biggest increases in sugar have been in breakfast cereals, and even whole wheat bread has become far sweeter. 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 as sugar prices fall and salt levels are reduced by health watchdogs.
In 1978, Kellogg’s Special K had 9.6 grams of sugar per 100 grams, but this has now nearly doubled to 17 grams about the same level as vanilla ice cream.
Soaring consumption of sugar has been blamed for high levels of tooth decay and increases in diabetes. Many scientists have implicated it in rising rates of obesity.
Ian Tokelove, a spokesman for the Food Commission in the United Kingdom, which campaigns for healthier foods, said: "Most of us are eating too much sugar, but we are being swamped with it in our food.
A bit more with some numbers -- the report was originally published in England so the brand names may not be recognizable to American readers:
The Sunday Times discovered the increases in sugar levels by analyzing 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 1978 edition shows that cans of tomato soup contained on average 2.6 grams of sugar per 100 grams in 1978. By contrast, many soups today have double that amount. A can of Waitrose tomato soup on sale last week had 6.4 grams of sugar per 100 grams, with almost three spoonfuls of sugar in every bowl.
The amount of sugar in a typical loaf of whole wheat bread rose from 2.1 grams per 100 grams in 1978 to 2.8 grams per 100 grams in 2002. A loaf of Hovis whole wheat bread now has 3.7 grams of sugar per 100 grams while Sainsbury’s whole wheat bread has 3.5 grams per 100 grams.
Kellogg’s has increased the sugar content in some of its bestselling cereals. Cornflakes now have eight grams of sugar per 100 grams compared with 7.4 grams in 1978; All-Bran has 17 grams compared with 15.4 grams in 1978, and Rice Krispies have 10 grams of sugar, up one gram since 1978.
Much of the extra sugar in the modern diet is blamed on processed foods. A study by Which? released earlier this month found Asda sticky chilli chicken contained 19.2 grams of sugar per 100 grams and Tesco crispy beef with sweet chilli sauce had 23.1 grams per 100 grams.
The core problem is that a little sugar and salt will make things taste a lot better -- snappier -- I use them both at home and put sugar in my pasta sauce -- just a little bit but it is there. It is easy for manufacturers to try to rev up sales by tampering with their products and one easy and cheap fix is to add more sugar...
Posted by DaveH at May 6, 2007 4:52 PM
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