Avoid children's breakfast cereals high in sugar, salt and fat -
CHOICE # 384 (October 16,
PDF version
Parents are urged to choose
children's breakfast cereals with low levels of sugar.
In the light of an international
joint test on breakfast cereals, the Consumer Council is concerned
over the results on the sugar content of 15 samples available in
the Hong Kong market.
All but one sample were deemed "high"
in sugar by established guidelines (UK Food Standards Agency's
Front-of-Pack Traffic Light Signpost Labelling - Technical
Guidance).
The 14 samples were found to contain
from 14.8g to 44g sugar per 100g of cereal. The UK guidelines set
the threshold for "high" sugar at 12.5g/100g and above.
The test is a joint study organized
by the International Consumer Research and Testing (ICRT) to
support the Consumers International (CI) call to ban the marketing
of unhealthy food and drink to children.
It focused on breakfast cereals
targeted for children under 12 years of age.
As the sugar detected in the samples
was largely sucrose (which exists naturally in cereals only in
trace amount), the high sugar content is believed to have been
caused mostly from "free sugars" added by the manufacturers in the
production process.
High intake of free sugars threatens
the nutrient quality of diets by providing significant energy but
without specific nutrients, thus unhealthy weight gain in
children.
The one sample with a sugar content
deemed acceptable contained 11.3g/100g.
Unfortunately, what less sugar it had
was more than made up by its content in salt (sodium). Indeed, it
had the highest level of sodium of all samples - 971mg/100g of
cereal.
For health reasons, parents should
also pay heed to the salt content of children's breakfast
cereals.
The sodium content of most of the
samples (10) in the test were found to be between 149mg/100g and
571mg/100g.
For fat content, the samples were
found to fare well with only low levels in the majority of cases
ranging from 0.58g to 7.56g in total fat and 0.17g to 4.21g in
saturated fat per 100g cereal respectively. All had lower than
0.1g/100g trans fat.
The ICRT study also compared samples
of 13 major products of two major brands drawn from 32 cities in 5
regions - Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, South America and
Africa - for their regional average levels in sugar, salt and
fat.
It was found that on average, South
America ranked highest in total sugars content (38g/100g), followed
by North America (37g/100g), Asia Pacific (35g/100g), Europe
(33g/100g) and Africa (27g/100g).
In terms of the average content in
sodium, North America was top (0.6mg/100g), followed by Asia
Pacific and Africa (both 0.5mg/100g), Europe and South America
(both 0.4mg/100g).
As for fat content, Europe had the
highest average of 3.1g/100g followed by South America (2.8g/100g),
Asia Pacific and North America (both 1.8g/100g), and Africa
(1.4g/100g).
Consumers can refer to this (October)
issue of CHOICE for the scores of the 15 children's breakfast
cereal found locally, based on the following weighting: total fat
(15%); saturated fat (15%); total sugars (35%); sodium (20%); and
dietary fibre (15%). The higher the score, the better.
Meanwhile, based on the findings of
this 32-city study, the Consumers International (CI), the global
federation of consumer organisations, is to release a report
entitled: Cereal Offences: a wake up call on the marketing of
unhealthy food to children, later this month.
The report will reveal the "shocking
levels" of sugar and salt found in many popular children's cereals,
as well as the marketing techniques that companies use to promote
them to children and parents.
CI is calling for an international
code for restricting the marketing of unhealthy food to children.
The organization argues that this is the only effective means of
ensuring all children are given adequate protection from the
promotion of foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
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