Many ‘healthy’ supermarket yogurts found to contain more sugar than Coca-cola

SOME supermarket yogurts may contain more sugar than Coca-cola despite being regarded as healthy, says a study.

Researchers have found that under one in 10 categories of yogurt sold in British supermarkets qualify as lowsugar, with brands labelled “organic” or those marketed at young children among the most sugary.

A typical yogurt contained more than half an adult’s daily recommended sugar allowance. The researchers assessed the nutrient content of 900 yogurts and yogurt products, which were available from five main UK online supermarket chains in late 2016.

Under the traffic lights nutritional labelling system, products with less than 5g of sugar per 100g would be given the green rating, while those with 22.5g per 100g were considered high in sugar. However, only those labelled “natural” or “Greek” qualified as low-sugar products. The total average sugars included in organic yogurt was 13.1g per 100g and in children’s yogurts it was 10.8g. There is 10.6g of sugar per 100ml of Coca-cola. A millilitre of water weighs a gram. The recommended daily sugar allowance is 30g.

Only two per cent of children’s yogurts were classified as low in sugar.

The researchers, from Surrey and Leeds Universities, wrote: “While yogurt may be less of a concern than soft drinks and fruit juices, the chief sources of free sugars in both children and adults’ diets, what is worrisome is that yogurt, as a perceived ‘healthy food’, may be an unrecognised source of free and added sugars in the diet.

“While the organic label refers to production, the well documented ‘health-halo effect’ means that consumers most often underestimate the caloric content and perceive the nutritional contents of organic products, including yogurts, more favourably.”

Public Health England (PHE) has challenged the food industry to reduce the sugar content of yogurts and fromage frais, along with other products, by 20 per cent by 2020.

A progress report published in May showed sugar content in yogurts was reduced by 6 per cent in the first year, making it the only category to exceed the 5 per cent target.