Extra sugar used in drive to reduce fat and salt

Some best-selling supermarket meals and snacks contain more sugar than a can of Coca-Cola, despite being described as savoury and “natural,” a British study shows.

Ready meals, sauces, soups, high-fibre cereals and low-fat yoghurts were found to have sugar levels described under UK National Health Service guidelines as “high”.

Food experts say an unwanted byproduct of the drive to reduce fat and salt has been the use of extra sugar to improve flavour.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, says: “We have a government which is allowing the food and drinks industry to lace its products with sugar. These are wasted calories which provide no nutritional content whatsoever. It is ruinous.

"Our view is that there should be a cap on the amount of sugar which they are allowed to put in their products.”

Some supermarket soups also have generous helpings of sugar. A Tesco fresh tomato and basil soup contains 8.4g of sugar per serving against a Heinz tomato soup with nearly 10g per serving.

Some products that many consumers would consider healthy also fared poorly. Cranberry juice boasts health-boosting properties but 11.9% of Ocean Spray original cranberry juice is sugar, which gives it a higher sugar content than Coca-Cola.

NHS guidelines state a food with less than 5g of sugar per 100g is classed as low in sugar. A product with 15g or more is classed as high in sugar. Kellogg’s natural wheat bran All-Bran cereal contains 20g of sugar per 100g and Kellogg’s Honey Loops have 29g.

Nutritionists say manufacturers will reduce sugar only if the government secures an industry-wide agreement.

Jack Winkler, emeritus professor of nutrition policy at London Metropolitan University, says: “People do like sweet tastes and it also adds texture rather than some of the modified starches, but there is an argument for reformulation of mass market foods. I call it the unobtrusive strategy, which means it has to be incremental, imperceptible and invisible.”

Britain is about to unveil the toughest labelling scheme in the world. Under the voluntary scheme, supermarkets will place “red lights” on some of the most popular foods.

The “red lights” will be on products with more than 17.5g of fat per 100g; more than 5g of saturated fat per 100g; more than 22.5g of sugar per 100g; and more than 1.5g of salt per 100g.