Consumers were warned yesterday that supposedly healthy fruit and tea drinks can contain more sugar than fizzy drinks like 7-Up and Coca-Cola. The revelations by the Consumer Council sent at least one distributor hastening to add sugar-content labels to its products and brought calls from the council and a legislator for the government to set a 'low sugar' standard for such drinks. Dietitians warned that drinking products with excessive sugar could lead to a higher risk of obesity-related diseases like diabetes. The Consumer Council tested 42 packaged fruit beverages, including sugar cane drinks, citron drinks, ginseng drinks and aloe vera drinks. MJ Pear Juice Drink and Hi-C Local Cafe Honey Citron Drink were found to be sweeter than soft drinks, with 10.6 and 10.4 per cent sugar content respectively, compared with 7-up with 9.6 per cent and Coca-Cola with 10 per cent. Lotte Aloe Vera Drink claimed to be a 'low sugar' drink but did not carry a sugar content label. It was found to have a sugar level of 8.1 per cent. The council has notified the Centre for Food Safety about this sample, asking if it was in breach of any regulation. The drink's distributor, Goldtop Century Ltd, said labels with the sugar level had been added to new stock. 'We have also ... labelled the drinks that are selling in the market right now,' the company's account director, Edmond Liu Kwok-ki, said. 'We asked the Centre for Food Safety for the standard on low sugar, but they couldn't tell us what should be classified as high sugar or low sugar; and we have no idea.' The centre said it was following up on the case. Giving false or misleading information on the label could lead to prosecution, with a maximum penalty of HK$50,000 and six months in prison. The Consumer Council advised buyers not to be misled by low-sugar claims on packaging. Ambrose Ho, vice-chairman of the council's publicity and community relations committee, said: 'Consumers should not just look at what they claim but must read the labels of how much sugar [the products] contain.' Legislator Fred Li Wah-ming advised consumers to protect themselves. 'Consumers have no idea [about the sugar content]. The government should give out some guidelines, set a standard on what qualifies as low sugar,' he said. Another study by the council found spending on school textbooks this year has risen 5.4 per cent in the primary sector. Average spending was HK$1,942. In the secondary sector, the rise was 3 per cent, with average expenditure of HK$1,752.