27 Aug, 2015
Sugar: Can we trust industry?
BBC News | Nick Triggle | Health correspondent
- There has been growing concern about the damaging impact of sugar on health – from the state of people’s teeth to type 2 diabetes and obesity.
- Sugar has been dubbed “empty calories” because it has no nutritional benefit.
- Government advisers recommend that no more than 5% of daily calories should come from sugar.
- That’s about 25g (around six or seven teaspoons) for an adult of normal weight every day. For children it is slightly less.
- The limits apply to all sugars added to food, as well as sugar naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates.
- To put this in context, a typical can of fizzy drink contains about nine teaspoons of sugar.
