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ABout a year or two ago I looked at the nutritional information of various "no added sugar" squashes to determine which had the lowest sugar content. My recollection is that that all had the sugar content in the nutritional information, with some cases including the "winner" at the time having values below 0.1g/100ml (I recall about 0.02g).

I have just repeated the exercise, and I now find that most do not specify the actual sugar content, with the winner from last time saying "Contains negligible amounts of fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars and protein" and others saying "Sugars <0.5g".

Is this the result of a regulatory change in the UK in recent years? Is there some other reason for this reduction in information available to the consumer?

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  • Presumably corporate money in politics seeking to get away with the same crap they do in the USA - call it two servings per can, and less than 0.5 is "0" and other slimy tricks that bought politicians will approve.
    – Ecnerwal
    Oct 23 at 14:51

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The main rules haven't changed since [I think] 2003, except for the new HFSS (high fat, salt and sugar) legislation added in 2021.

UK regs are that liquids with <0.5g/100ml can be called sugar free. Per serving 'cheating' is allowed on the front of the pack [the green, amber, red ovals], but not on the back. However for a dilutable juice drink, they are allowed to specify their 100ml after dilution.

Here's a handy list of what they can claim…

https://www.reading.ac.uk/foodlaw/label/nutrition-claims.htm
Note, this list was made before the recent high-sugar taxes came into force [but that's at the other end of our scale.]

There's a more comprehensive consumer guide at the British Nutrition Foundation - Looking at labels

In general, it wouldn't surprise me if manufacturers are swapping sugar for more artificial sweeteners these days, even to the extent of removing natural sugars from the processed concentrate these things are made from. After all, you can now get zero calorie Lucozade… which always seems to me to be the most pointless 'energy drink' of all time ;)

If you really want to hurt your brain… I found the document setting out how a nutrient profile score must be calculated. Don't read whilst driving or operating heavy machinery, in case you fall asleep -
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cdac7e5274a2c9a484867/dh_123492.pdf

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