Have you ever wondered how good for you Vitamin Water is or how much sugar is in Ribena? Well, we've checked out the stats and the results are shocking. Take a look to see how much sugar is in the drinks you thought were 'healthy'.
Have you ever wondered how much sugar is in soft drinks? Those favourite refreshing thirst-quenchers you’ve been drinking over the years have been hiding a not-so-sweet little secret; they’re full of sugar!
New results from a survey of kids’ juice drinks by Action on Sugar found that some of the drinks contained more sugar than a can of Coca-Cola. The group tested 203 supermarket juice drinks and founnd that more than a quarter of the drinks – which were all marketed at children – contained at least six teaspoons of sugar for every 200ml glass.
We’ve been carefully studying the labels on some of the nation’s favourite drinks to uncover some pretty shocking results. Take a look to see how the drinks you thought were healthy actually aren’t…
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Tesco Goodness Slurper Apple and Banana smoothie
One of the very worst performers in the Action on Sugar survey was Tesco’s kids’ fruit smoothies, apple and banana flavour. The sweet drink contains 14.5g of sugar per 100ml. Assuming your child had a 200ml glass of the stuff, they’d be consuming a whopping 29 grams of sugar, which equivalates to 8 teaspoons!
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Asda Chosen By You Tropical Juice
Asda’s kids’ tropical juice hasn’t come out too pretty either, it contains a pretty unbelievable 13g of sugar per 100ml. To put that into context for you, 100ml of Coca-Cola contains 10.6g of sugar, half a teaspoon less than Asda’s kids’ juice.
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Vitamin Water
You’d think a drink called ‘Vitamin Water’ would be good for you but the Coca-Cola made beverage actually contains 31g of sugar per bottle – that’s the equivalent to about four or five teaspoons of sugar (a quarter of the recommended daily intake).
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Fruit Shoot apple and blackcurrant
Robinsons Fruit Shoot looks like it’s full of healthy juice,
but in actual fact only 10% of the liquid is pure fruit juice. The
kid-size 200ml bottles contain 22g of sugar which is a staggering five and a half
teaspoons. The manufacturers, Brivtic, have created Fruit Shoot H20 – a
low-calorie flavoured water and Fruit Shoot 100% which is pure juice –
both much healthier options than the original.
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Fruit Shoot
Robinsons Fruit Shoot looks like it’s full of healthy strawberry juice, but in actual fact only 8% of the liquid is pure fruit juice. The kid-size 200ml bottles contain 23g of sugar which is a staggering five teaspoons. The manufacturers, Brivtic, have created Fruit Shoot H20 – a low-calorie flavoured water and Fruit Shoot 100% which is pure juice – both much healthier options than the original.
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This Water
Certain flavours of This Water (the flavoured water range of drinks that shares a parent company with smoothie company Innocent) contain 34g of sugar per 420ml bottle – that’s actually more sugar than in the same amount of Coca-Cola.
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The traditional children’s fruit juice contains an incredibly high amount of sugar – despite being marketed as containing real fruit juice and being free of artificial colours, flavours and sweeteners, a 250ml carton contains 26g of sugar which is more than 6 teaspooons. Ribena does however, offer healthier versions including Ribena Toothkind which only contains the natural sugars from blackcurrants.
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Yakult
Yakult probiotic drinks contain a whopping 9.2g of sugar in each tiny 65ml pot – not too impressive for a drink which is marketed at being healthy.
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Vimto, the mixed fruit juice drink, says it contains ‘real fruit juices’ yet there’s only 2.7% grape juice, 0.2% blackcurrent and 0.1% raspberry. While there’s very little fruit, there’s certainly a lot of sugar amounting to 6 and a half grams, (which is a teaspoon and a half).
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Five Alive
A lunchbox favourite, 5 Alive cartons contain up to 8g of sugar per 100ml. Just two small cartons would be more than the daily recommended intake of sugar.
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Capri Sun
Capri Suns have long been kids’ favourites yet they contain, and while they are 100% pure fruit juice, all those sugars add up. 20g of sugar per carton – nearly half the recommended daily intake of sugar in one small drink.
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Danone Actimel
Danone Actimel may be full of ‘good bacteria’ but it also contains 11.6g of sugar per 100g!
Where to next?
– Smart food swaps – lunch
– Smart food swaps – party
– Smart food swaps – dinner and dessert