Fruit snacks are saturated with more sugar than sweets

Fruit snacks 'contain more
sugar than sweets'

Many supposedly "healthy" fruit
snacks aimed at children
contain more sugar than
sweets, says a campaign group.
Action on Sugar looked at 94
products on UK sale, such as
coated dried fruit, and found a
third contained three or four
teaspoons of sugar and 85%
were more sugary than Haribo
Starmix sweets.
Child health experts said the
findings were frightening.
The industry pointed out that
most of the snacks had no added
sugars, and those that did were
clearly labelled.
Action on Sugar said that parents
should give their children fresh
fruit and vegetables instead of
processed fruit snacks.
And it called on food
manufacturers to stop adding
unnecessary sugars to fruit-
based snacks while labelling
them as contributing to "one of
your five a day".
Katharine Jenner, campaign
director at Action on Sugar, said:
"Parents find it hard enough to
know what 'healthy' is without
food manufacturers confusing
matters with misleading claims.
"Whole, unprocessed fruit is
healthier than processed fruit
snacks and fruit juice drinks, as it
contains vitamins, minerals,
water and fibre, and does not
cause the devastating tooth
decay we see in young children
today."
A child would have to eat an
entire punnet (240g) of
strawberries to take in the same
number of grams of sugar as in
some processed fruit snacks.
Colin Michie, chairman of the
nutrition committee at the Royal
College of Paediatrics and Child
Health, said the findings were
"stunning" and "frightful".
"None of us needs sugar in our
diets at all. It is all completely
unnecessary.
"Fruit contains fibre, which we all
need to function properly, but in
these snacks the benefits of fruit
have been sacrificed by covering
them in yogurt and other sugary
coatings."
How much sugar in processed
fruit snacks?
The Fruit Factory Sports Mix-
Ups (5x18g) - 81g of sugar
per 100g* or 3.6 teaspoons**
of sugar per serving
Tesco Yogurt Coated
Strawberry Fruit Bites (25g) -
70.1g of sugar per 100g or
4.4 teaspoons of sugar per
serving
Fruit Bowl Fruit Flakes
Raspberry Rush (25g) - 69g of
sugar per 100g or 4.3
teaspoons of sugar per
serving
Whitworths Sunny Raising
Coated Custard Raisins (25g) -
68.6g of sugar per 100g or
4.3 teaspoons of sugar per
serving
Organix Goodies Organic Fruit
Gummies strawberry and
apple (12g) - 67.2g of sugar
per 100g of the snack or 2
teaspoons of sugar per
serving
*Haribo Starmix contains 47g of
sugar per 100g
**One teaspoon of sugar is equal
to four grams of granulated
sugar

For full article visit www.bbc.com/news/health-32914999