Are your drinks too sweet? 1 in 3 beverages served in Hong Kong restaurants high in sugar, study finds
Consumer Council and Centre for Food Safety tested over 100 samples earlier this year
Nearly one in every three Chinese beverages served in the city’s restaurants are high in sugar, a consumer watchdog study has found, with sour plum drinks, hawthorn drinks and citron honey topping the chart.
The Consumer Council and the Centre for Food Safety tested over 100 samples of non-packaged drinks served in Chinese restaurants, hotpot restaurants and tea restaurants from May to July this year.
The joint research found 30 per cent of the sampled drinks contained high sugar content, with over 7.5 grams of sugar found in every 100 millilitres.
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Among the 11 types of drinks that were sampled, hawthorn drinks and citron honey had the highest sugar content, with an average of 10 grams of sugar per 100 millilitres. Luohanguo drinks had the least sugar, with an average of just 1.2 grams of sugar.
According to World Health Organisation guidelines released in March, a person with a 2000-kilocalorie diet is recommended to consume less than 50 grams of sugar — including syrups, honeys and fruit juices — a day. In a further conditional recommendation, the WHO recommends halving that amount to 25 grams a day.
Dr Samuel Yeung, principal medical officer of the centre, said the study showed sugar content varied widely by type of drink and that the food industry in the city needed to do more to reduce sugar in their drinks.
“The industry needs to know the sugar in the drinks they serve affects the health of the public,” said Yeung. “Very often, the consumers do not know sugar content can be that high in some drinks.”
Yeung added that frequent consumption of beverages with high sugar content can lead to being overweight and obesity.
Gilly Wong, the council’s chief executive, said while some restaurants were striving to cut sugar in their drinks, some were still resisting because they feared their customers would not accept a change in taste.
“The best way is to cut the sugar bit by bit,” said Wong.
