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‘Families don’t understand what a teaspoon of sugar is’ - FDF says

3rd Mar 2016 - 09:28
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The corporate affairs director of the Food & Drink Federation has rejected calls to label products with the sugar content in terms of teaspoons because ‘one person’s teaspoon is another person’s tablespoon’.

Tim Rycroft made the claim as he was being challenged by Olympian James Cracknell, who recently published a report supporting the move, on Channel 4 news.

He said that using the teaspoon method would confuse families because he owns 25 teaspoons which all vary in size and because Public Health England has instead called for labeling products by number of sugar cubes.

However, Cracknell pointed out that the standard measure of both a sugar cube and teaspoon are four grams.

Cracknell told Channel 4 News: “A teaspoon is a teaspoon. It’s not that hard. You may have a variety of size teaspoons in your house. I am not that good a cook, but I know the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon.

“Putting teaspoon information on the side of a can makes much bigger sense to the whole country.”

Labelling high sugar products with a teaspoon guide has been one of the measures regularly supported by health campaigners to help tackle the country’s childhood obesity problem.

The Government’s official strategy, which was originally expected to be published before Christmas, has now been pushed back to the summer, a Government spokesperson told media that a sugar tax was unlikely to feature.

Written by
PSC Team