From cereals to yoghurt: Experts reveal the horrifying amount of sugar hiding in your children's food
- Experts have revealed the secret sugars that are hiding in children's food
- Obesity expert Dr Nick Fuller and mother Belinda McDougall shared their insight
- They said some of the worst offenders are liquid breakfasts, yoghurt and cereal
Navigating the complexities of sugar is difficult - but now experts have revealed how much of it is really hiding in the food you feed your children.
Speaking to The Today Show obesity expert Dr Nick Fuller and mother Belinda McDougall from the Lady Shake Food and Drinks Company said the labelling of sugar on products is a 'deliberate minefield'.
Ms McDougall figured this out when she gave her two children, a two year old and four year old, an Up & Go each for breakfast.
'Half an hour later there was a big sugar crash and when I looked on the packet I actually worked out there was five teaspoons of sugar in one little Up & Go when you're meant to only have six teaspoons a day,' she said.
This led her to conduct further research into how much sugar was in the food being marketed to children.
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Navigating the complexities of sugar can be difficult but now experts have revealed how much sugar is really hiding in the food you feed your children (stock image)
'What the big companies are doing now to confuse us, and it is deliberate, is they're putting things like "30 per cent less sugar" and "all natural" on their labels,' she said.
'But just because something's all natural doesn't mean it's not full of sugar and it may say high protein but a lot of these high protein items have more sugar than protein.'
She explained that reading food labels can be difficult, which is often made harder by the fact that there are 50 different names for sugar.
'Companies are deliberately doing it because sugar's cheap and they want their products to appear cheaper than they really are,' she said.
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Ms McDougall explained that she figured out that the labelling of sugar on products is a 'deliberate mind field' when she gave her two children an Up & Go and they experienced a sugar crash
'What the big companies are doing now to confuse us, and it is deliberate, is they're putting things like "30 per cent less sugar" and "all natural" on their labels,' she said
Dr Fuller said another trapping is when something is labelled as low in fat.
He said the main thing he sees with his patients is a state of confusion over which foods have a healthy amount of sugar.
'This is now a $100 billion dollar health and wellness industry and people don't know what to believe,' he said.
'It also comes to the food manufacturers themselves. If you have a look at some of these products we are misled with how much information is being provided.
'The one thing the government couldn't gotten right with the health star rating they haven't, because this isn't a mandatory labelling process and often you will pick up a packet, you see four stars and you think it's healthy but actually it's not.'
| Age | Maximum recommended sugar intake per day | Teaspoons |
|---|---|---|
| 4 - 6 years | 19g | 5 |
| 10 years | 24g | 6 |
| From 11yrs | 30g | 7 |
| Source: BBC Good Food |
She explained that reading food labels can be difficult, which is often made harder by the fact that there are 50 different names for sugar
When it comes to breakfast cereals for children, Nick said everyone should go back to 'nature's treats' and he particularly recommended porridge as a great breakfast option.
He added that anything that comes out of a packet is going to have a lot more sugar than what it's made out to be.
'We need to give our kids the best chance and shop around the perimeter of the supermarket where we have those fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds,' he said.
'But just because something's all natural doesn't mean it's not full of sugar and it may say high protein but a lot of these high protein items have more sugar than protein,' Ms McDougall said
She added that although plain yoghurt has hardly any sugar in it things become more complicated when you start incorporating flavoured kinds
Ms McDougall said that although plain yoghurt has hardly any sugar in it things become more complicated when you start incorporating flavoured kinds.
She added that the ones from Chobani nearly have an entire day's worth of sugar.
'What we're calling on the government to do is put sugar on the front of each packaging of how much total sugar is in each product so that when you're going through the supermarket you can make a conscious choice for your family,' she said.
Dr Fuller said their needs to be better education about how people can properly use a health start rating and we need to make this mandatory on all food products.
'It could be a very useful tool for the Australian population if applied correctly and the other thing we need to do is actually change the scoring index because sugars are healthy if they're in their natural occurring form,' he said.
'Fruits and vegetables and some other products are actually very healthy but at the moment all sugars are bundled together, which is confusing.
'It is the added sugars we need to start minimising.'
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