Is one sweet ever enough?

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

In the case of the 75g pack of Maynards mini wine gums, once that pack is open theres no way to seal it again. Picture: Etienne Creux

Related Stories

• The sinister reasons we eat junk food
• Cut the salt and eat well - recipes
• How to pair soft drinks with food
• Ignore food and eat more - study

Johannesburg - Calling all sweet lovers: Do you know how many sweets Maynards makers Tiger Brands thinks you should be eating at a time?

One.

Yes, just the one.

Now, I’m not big on sweets, but if I do buy a roll or packet of wine gums, there is no way I deposit a single one in my mouth then put it away for a day or two, before I allow myself another, single sweet.

In the case of the 75g pack of Maynards mini wine gums, once that pack is open there’s no way to seal it again, which pretty much encourages you to devour the lot, if you ask me.

Dietitian Carol Browne agrees. In fact she felt so strongly about what she considered a “misleading” serving size that she wrote to Tiger Brands about the issue recently, copying Consumer Watch.

“I would like to appeal to you to correct the information on the nutrition information labels of the Maynards sweets line,” she wrote.

The range includes wine gums and jelly babies.

“The nutrition information lists a single serving as one sweet.

“A serving is not one unit in the food pack; if that were the case then bread would label one slice of bread, rice one grain of rice.

“I would say that with a 75g pack of sweets it is reasonable to think that the typical consumer will eat the whole pack, therefore a serving is 75g.

“I will wait to see the changes on the label, but until then I will continue to use packages like this one as examples, when I do education sessions to schools and consumers, of the need to think about what manufacturers tell you.

“Do not assume that because the regulations are designed to require information that is usable, the manufacturer will apply the spirit of the law.”

Brown was referring to the fact that the regulations relating to labelling and advertising foodstuffs – which have been in force for a year – do not included mandatory serving sizes.

Food manufacturers are left to make their own decisions about a serving size.

To those wanting to minimise their intake of fat, sugar, salt or total kilojoules, the smaller the numbers in the nutrition table, the greater the appeal of the product.

Hence many manufacturers’ tendency to underestimate the serving size.

Responding, Tiger Brands’ group regulatory affairs manager, Renusha Chanda, said the company’s challenge, in determining a single serving, was to ensure that “we don’t communicate in a way that could be construed as encouraging consumers to eat amounts that could be seen as indirectly encouraging weight gain”.

This was particularly pertinent with “sugar confectionery products”, she said.

Chanda referred to the regulations, which state that a single serving must be that which is “typically consumed by most people as a single serving” and that “which would not encourage consumers to consume ‘supersize’ servings which might result in an undesirable increase of their total energy intake that could contribute to unhealthy weight gain”.

“This is a difficult balance to find,” Chanda said, “as there is no in-country information on typical consumption, nor guidance on determining servings for the South African population which do not contribute to unhealthy weight gain.

“In addition, consumption of the same amount of sweets by one person may not contribute to unhealthy weight gain but may in another person.”

And so to the crux of the response: “If the serving is 75g, this could be considered as encouraging consumption of a supersize serving, particularly as the product is a sugar-based snack, which is high in energy.

“Also, there is no evidence that a typical consumer would consume the entire 75g pack, and we cannot assume that this is the case.”

Chanda did reveal that internationally, sweet packs carried nutritional information based on 100g or five sweets, depending on the market.

But Tiger Brands had taken a conservative approach in determining the serving size of its Maynards and other products, she said.

“Providing nutrient information on one sweet enables the consumer to calculate the nutrient content of the portion that they are consuming, based on the number of individual sweets consumed.” - The Star

Get our free Lifestyle newsletter - subscribe here...