A drink can look healthy and still be mostly sugar. The bottle is green, the label says natural, and there is a picture of fruit. Here are five questions that tell you more than the front of the bottle.
1. How much sugar is in it?
The World Health Organization advises keeping free sugars below 10% of your daily energy, and says that below 5%, about 25g or 6 teaspoons a day, is even better. It counts the sugar in fruit juice as free sugar too. For scale, a can of soda can hold up to 40g.
2. What comes first on the ingredients list?
The NHS explains that ingredients are listed by weight, with the biggest first. If sugar, syrup or juice concentrate is near the top, it is a big part of the drink.
3. How big is one serving?
The US Food and Drug Administration tells shoppers to check the number of servings in the pack. A bottle that holds two servings has double the sugar and calories printed for one serving.
4. What does natural mean?
Less than you might think. The FDA has never made a formal definition of natural. Its long-standing view is only that nothing artificial or synthetic has been added, and it has not said that natural means healthy.
5. Will you enjoy it?
This one matters more than it sounds. A drink you do not like will not become a habit, however healthy the label makes it look. Choose something you are happy to drink again.
Our own five questions
At Juicy every drink has to pass five questions of our own before it goes on the menu. Does it taste great? Does it make the healthy choice the easy one? Would we serve it to our own family? Does it feel like Juicy? Would we be happy if it became someone's everyday drink? You can check the sugar in each one on getjuicy.vn/nutri, and a 360ml bottle is two servings.
Sources: World Health Organization, Guideline: sugars intake for adults and children (2015); NHS, How to read food labels; US Food and Drug Administration, How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label, and Use of the Term Natural on Food Labeling.
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