About 85.6 percent of hand-shaken drinks contain more sugar than the labeled amount, while 55.6 percent of “sugar-free” tea has sugar residues, National Taiwan University researchers found.
College of Public Health researchers at a news conference yesterday said that the study showed a large gap between regulations on popular drinks and food safety realities.
The discrepancy is significant, as a cup of tea from a beverage shop contains 46.5g of refined sugar nominally, or 3.5g short of the maximum recommended daily intake according to WHO guidelines, associate professor of food safety Luo Yu-syuan (羅宇軒) said.
Photo: CNA
It means that anyone who drinks one tea, eats three average meals and other normal beverages each day would have consumed more sugar than is healthy, not counting the excess sugar not listed in the label, he said.
The inaccurate sugar content labeling might be down to the sugar inherent in the ingredients, human error or the standard preparation procedures used by each franchise, he said.
Using the vendor’s description of sugar content in drinks would not be conducive to health, and frequent consumption of hand-shaken teas is likely linked to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and fatty liver, he added.
Taiwanese tea chains are offering artificial sweeteners in response to the demands of health-conscious consumers, but such substances are not supposed to be utilized as a long-term solution for weight control, Luo said.
The impact of sweeteners on metabolism is not fully understood and fears about potentially negative health effects have not been allayed, he said.
The average Taiwanese tea drinker who drinks artificial sweetener-infused beverages is not exceeding the recommended daily limit of the substance’s intake, he added.
Taiwanese men aged between 18 and 39, and those who are either overweight or underweight, are the ones most likely to consume bubble tea in large quantities, Luo said.
People can drink hand-shaken tea, but should be careful about selecting the amount of sugar and be conscious about frequency, he said.
The government and businesses should improve the accuracy of product content labeling, he added.
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