Dental Health Week – How Much Sugar is Hidden in Your Trolley? Part 2 – Reading the Labels
It’s important to read the Nutrition Information Panel found on the food label to make a proper healthy choice.
Reading the label
What to look for on the food label:
- When choosing products based on their sugar content, check the amount of sugar per 100 grams (g). This will allow you to compare like with like. If you use the sugar per serve value, you are NOT making a proper comparison.
- It’s best to find foods and beverages with 5g or less sugar per 100g. Between 5g and 10g is not so bad. However, products with over 15g of sugar per 100g, it may be best to find healthier choices.
- Not all products will advise the how much added sugars present as a value on the label. To check for added sugars, look at the list of ingredients, which are usually found at the base of the label. The higher an ingredient is to the top of the list, the more of it is within the item.
Grams to teaspoons
You will often health sugar content measured by ‘number of teaspoons.’ This unit of measure can often make it easier to understand sugar content by relating it to spoonful of sugar.
To know how many teaspoons make up a quantity of sugar, divide the amount of sugar by 4.
1 teaspoon of sugar = 4 grams
So, if a drink label advised it contains 20g of sugar, this means it is equal to 5 teaspoons’ worth of sugar.
Example:
20g sugar = 5 teaspoons of sugar
4g per teaspoon
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Next week
Dental Health Week - How Much Sugar is Hidden in Your Trolley? Part 3 - Understanding Sugar