UK health group finds chains' hot flavored beverages are loaded with sugar
How much sugar's in your hot beverage? (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
(Newser)
–
Have some hot beverage with your
sugar. That's the roundabout finding of a UK health advocacy
organization that discovered hot flavored drinks served by chains like
Starbucks, McDonald's, and Dunkin' Donuts can contain a "shocking"
amount of sugar—sometimes up to 25 teaspoons per serving, or more than
three times the recommended daily amount for adults, per CNNMoney. The Action on Sugar report analyzed 131 hot flavored drinks
from UK chains—though CNN points out nutritional info on company
websites would make results similar in the US—and found that 98% of the
tested beverages would get slapped with a "red" label for excessive
amounts of sugar, with 35% of them boasting the same amount of sugar as a
can of Coke (9 teaspoons) or more.
"These hot flavored drinks should be
an occasional treat, not an everyday drink," an Action for Sugar
researcher warns. "They are laden with an unbelievable amount (of) sugar
and calories and are often accompanied by a high sugar and fat snack."
Starbucks claimed the worst of the bunch with its hot mulled fruit grape
drink with orange, chai, and cinnamon—the 25-teaspoon suspect mentioned
earlier. A Starbucks rep says it is committed to cutting down by a
quarter the amount of added sugar in its "indulgent" beverages by 2020
and notes that it "also [offers] a wide variety of lighter options,
sugar-free syrups, and sugar-free natural sweetener" and makes all of
its nutritional data public. That doesn't sweeten the results for the
Action on Sugar chairman, who says it's "yet again another example of
scandalous amounts of sugar added to our food and drink," per CNBC. (No one can figure out what Starbucks' newest drink even is.)
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