The George Institute for Global Health is calling for a comprehensive definition of added sugars found in processed foods, after its research found around 60 per cent of Australian food products contained some form of added sugar.
The Institute said it was concerned that Food Standards Australia New Zealand’s (FSANZ) December announcement of tighter restrictions on voluntary ‘no added sugar’ claims could see the delay or abandonment of FSANZ’s original work on added sugars – to have added sugars added to the nutrition information panel (NIP).
In researched published this week in Current Developments in Nutrition, the Institute explains the significance of what FSANZ counts as ‘in’ and ‘out’ of any potential added sugars definition.
Senior author of the research, Dr Alexandra Jones, is senior research fellow in Food Policy at The George Institute and conjoint senior lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW Sydney. Jones said it was understandable the food ministers and FSANZ had to address the “proliferation of potentially misleading ‘no added sugar’ claims in the market”.
“Without a comprehensive definition of added sugars in Australia, we are paving the way for highly processed, concentrated fruit and vegetable sugars to remain ‘hidden’ in foods that can still be presented by the food industry as ‘healthy’.
“A comprehensive definition is also an essential step to building added sugar considerations into other policy levers such as the Health Star Rating system, which will collectively and significantly drive reductions in consumption,” Jones said.
There is no internationally agreed standard definition for added sugar, so the research tested three definitions across 25,323 packaged products in the Australian food supply: the definition used by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), one developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and one developed by the Food Policy team at The George Institute.
The Institute said that its definition included additional forms of sugars that have been linked with negative health impacts and ‘future proofs’ the definition as much as possible in anticipation of further industry innovation in added sugars.
The research found that around 60 per cent of the Australian food supply contained added sugars of some kind. Adopting its definition would capture and require added sugars to be disclosed on 7.4 per cent more products than the USDA definition and 4.3 per cent more than the WHO definition.
Excess intake of added sugars is associated with weight gain and increased risk of type 2 diabetes, dental cavities, and cancers including breast and bowel, the Institute said.
The Institute said that under FSANZ’s new rule, a rolled fruit strap can no longer claim to have ‘no added sugar’, but it can still claim to be ‘100% fruit’ or ‘made from real fruit’, suggesting the strap is as healthy as the whole fruit.
Food for Health Alliance executive manager Jane Martin said, “These processed fruit and vegetable sugars are found in popular foods – many targeting children – such as fruit straps, flavoured yoghurt pouches, infant foods, muesli bars and cereals. People are buying these products believing them to be healthy, when really, they are not.
“If we do not include processed fruit and vegetable sugars in the form of pastes, powders, pulps and purees, as well as dried fruits, in a comprehensive definition of added sugars within the regulations, we are creating loopholes that can be exploited by the food industry.”
The George Institute is calling on Australian food ministers and FSANZ to:
- Build upon the progress in regulation of added sugars in the food supply;
- progress development and implementation of a comprehensive definition of added sugars to enable mandatory quantifying and disclosure of added sugars in nutrition information panels; and build added sugar data into updates to the method used to calculate Health Star Ratings.
- WHO recommends children two to 18 years of age consumer less than six teaspoons, or 25 grams of sugar per day. A school lunch box containing one fruit flavoured yoghurt pouch, one muesli bar with dried fruit, and one rolled fruit strap would on average meet or exceed this daily limit for total sugar.
