Fruit juice can have as much – or more – sugar than soda or energy drinks. But unlike those drinks, juices won’t come with a warning label under SA’s latest draft regulations for food labelling.
Apples, oranges and grapes are healthy fruits but when they are turned into juice they pack as much, or more, sugar than some sodas or energy drinks.
Under SA’s proposed food labelling regulations, 100% fruit juice won’t be required to show a high sugar warning on their packaging because their sugars are “naturally occurring”. But because of their sugar content, nutritional experts say when people consume too much of them, there isn’t really a healthier option between soda, flavoured water or energy drinks.
“Coke has too much sugar, but fruit juices also have too much natural sugar,” said Edzani Mphaphuli, executive director of Grow Great, a nonprofit organisation which works to shape childhood nutrition policies.
Sugar is helping drive SA’s obesity rise, with one in 10 children under five already overweight. Researchers have found that drinking just one sugar-sweetened beverage a day raises the chances of a child being overweight by more than half.
That’s part of what proposed food labelling regulations are meant to combat.
Under the current draft – which the health department is still reviewing, according to spokesperson Foster Mohale – fruit juices will fall through a definition loophole. But that’s not what researchers who gave input on the rules recommended, or what many public health experts advise.
“Our evaluation used the criteria of ‘free sugars’, where all 100% fruit juices would have carried a warning label. That highlights the importance of reconsidering the best term to include when the final regulation is published,” said Tamryn Frank, a researcher at the University of the Western Cape.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “free sugars” are sugars added to products like sodas and energy drinks, as well as those naturally found in fruits. But the current draft proposal says only products with “added sugar” will be required to carry a label.
The draft regulations say any drink with more than 5g of sugar (more than one teaspoon) per 100ml, or any amount of artificial sweetener must show a black and white triangle with the word “warning” in bold capital letters.
If passed in its current form, researchers say almost six in 10 of all sodas, energy drinks and juices sold at supermarkets in the country would carry a warning label. But while 94% of soft drinks and 97% of energy drinks would need warning labels for high sugar or artificial sweeteners, just 30% of juices would be labelled.
Pure 100% fruit juices won’t carry a warning label because their sugar is natural. But not all juices are completely natural, some contain added sugar or sweeteners – so those with more than a teaspoon of sugar per 100ml will still need to carry a “high in sugar” warning.
What’s in your drink?
Bhekisisa did the sums to work out which drinks have the most sugar and which will – or won’t – need a warning label, according to the current version of the regulations.
Fruit juices
While they didn’t have any artificial sweeteners, all of the juices we compared – Fruugo sparkling apple juice, Ceres orange and Rhodes grape juice – had more sugar than all of the other drinks we compared except for Coke.
“Because they come straight from nature, people think they must be healthy. But it’s not exactly the same thing as eating a single fruit,” explained Mphaphuli. “Juice is highly concentrated and you need to dilute it with water if you’re going to give it to a child [to reduce the sugar content].”
Whole fruits are filled with fibre, which slows digestion and helps control blood sugar. But that fibre is shed when fruit is turned into juice. Without it, sugar reaches the bloodstream faster, which can cause spikes and drops in energy. Research has shown that swapping a fruit juice for some types of whole fruit three times a week can lower a person’s chances of getting type 2 diabetes – likely because juice raises blood sugar faster and has less fibre.
Sodas
Among the three sodas, Coke has the most sugar – and is the only one that contains caffeine, a stimulant, which means it speeds up the messages travelling between the brain and the body, and can therefore make you sleep less well. Too much caffeine can lead to anxiety, restlessness and affect the way your heart beats.
WHO says an adult should not consume more than six to 12 teaspoons of sugar per day. A can of original taste 440ml of Coke contains 2.65 teaspoons of sugar per 100ml, which means an entire can contains about 11.5 teaspoons of sugar – more than the maximum WHO daily limit.
Sodas are some of the sweetest drinks you can buy and, research shows we drink an average of 254 Coca-Cola products per person per year, almost triple the global average of 89.