News • Children's Food Campaign
‘Shocking’ levels of sugar found in coffee shop hot drinks
A new survey undertaken by Action on Sugar on hot flavoured drinks from popular coffee shops and fast food chains, has found that 98% of the 131 drinks tested would receive a ‘red’ nutritional value label for excessive levels of sugar. The drinks assessed included coffees, mochas, lattes, hot fruit drinks and hot chocolates.
Campaign group Action on Sugar found ‘dangerously’ high levels of sugar in hot flavoured drinks sold in many high street coffee shop chains. A third of the drinks tested contained the same or higher levels of sugar than a can of Coca Cola, which contains nine teaspoons of sugar per can. The worst offender was found to contain 25 teaspoons of sugar which is more than three times the recommended maximum adult daily intake of seven teaspoons.
Action on Sugar is calling for coffee shops to cut the amount of sugar in their drinks, improve food labelling and a stop selling extra-large servings. Chains such as Starbucks, Costa and Caffe Nero said they were committed to reducing the sugar content of their drinks.
One in five of the population, which includes teenagers, visits coffee shops on a daily basis. The charity group’s chairman, Professor Graham Macgregor, said: ‘No wonder we have the highest rates of obesity in Europe.’ The research comes ahead of the Government’s childhood obesity strategy which is due to be released in the coming weeks.
News coverage: BBC, The Guardian
Published Wednesday 17 February 2016
Children's Food Campaign: Better food and food teaching for children in schools, and protection of children from junk food marketing are the aims of Sustain's high-profile Children's Food Campaign. We also want clear food labelling that can be understood by everyone, including children.
