The Role of Sugars and Sugars in Food Labelling

Actually to tell you the truth, I was clueless about the role of sugars until I read the article on added sugars in growing up milk powder. At first I was quite shocked and got all confused but did calmed down after clarified my issues. Now I know there are few types of sugars and what are they made of. We sometimes tend to forget to check the label, just like me, I thought all milk powders are healthy and ok since well, it is milk! Little did I know the amount of added sugars they put inside it.

Excess added sugars in the diet can lead to overweight and obesity in children and Asia (lets hope Malaysia is not at the highest rank) has the largest number of overweight/ obese children. This is of course not good and will affect their development and make their health at risk in later life. Can you just imagine if your kids don’t get to do lots of activity just because they are overweight? So kesian! Don’t get me wrong, our children need all the nutrients but not the added sugars. Excess added sugars can also be described as “empty calories” and do not have any nutritious values. Gasp! All that energy are stored in the body and you ended up being fat.

For your information, in growing up milk labeling, sugars are declared as carbohydrate and we parents always mistakenly thought that it is good. Example of a good carbo – banana, potato and more complex like bread. Again, yes they need the nutrients but not the added sugars. You might want to follow these 3 easy steps for the labeling guidelines:-

Step 1: Remember the names of added sugars

Sucrose, corn syrups solids, glucose, syrup, maltodextrin are the most common names used in growing up milk so look out for all this names in the ingredient list!

Step 2: Review the ingredient list

If you could check every single detail before deciding and making any purchase. Please bear in mind that the list is always in descending order so the ingredient at the top of the list are the most and those at the bottom are the least.

Step 3:  Evaluate the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP)

It is tricky to know the exact amount of added sugars in your growing up milk powder

because it is not mandatorily declared on the label. However, you can still estimate how much added sugars are in your current growing up milk powder. 

Firstly, remember that a typical serving of standard milk (~200 ml as consumed) contains about 11g-12 g of carbohydrates per serving. This is all lactose or ‘natural milk sugar’ in layman terms. This is the normal, natural and healthy sugar level in milk.

Secondly, remember that the term ‘carbohydrate’ in milk powder labels in Malaysia consists of only sugars (natural lactose + added sugars).  This is because under the Malaysian Food Labelling Regulations, even though fibre is a part of carbohydrate, it is not included in the declaration of the total carbohydrate level on the product label. It is declared separately. This means in growing up milk powders, fibres are not part of carbohydrates and sugars are part of carbohydrates.

Finally, look at the level of ‘carbohydrates per serve’ in your growing up milk powder.

Anything above 11g-12g for ‘carbohydrate per serve’ level, is a good estimate of added sugars per serve in the formulation.  

These steps are important in order for you to make a better choice for your children. I am sure all parents would want the best for their child this is one of the way for us to make things right and let our children grow happily and most important, healthy J