Added Sugar Cereal Class Action Settlement - post cereal

[AsherO]

BTW, WIC (in NJ) gives yogurt, but they only allow low fat or fat-free. The kosher fat-free one has 40 grams of sugar in an 8 oz serving. That means 8 teaspoons of sugar in a cup.

Imagine putting 8 spoons of sugar into a coffee? But that's what WIC wants us to feed our children, because after all, it's fat-free.

The funny thing is the program is supposed to support nutrition and you keep having to do “nutrition consultations”, only in America.

[biobook]

IINM, it's 5 grams.

According to nutritionists, a teaspoon of sugar contains 4 g of sugar, and that's the number used on nutrition labels in packaging.  My bag of brown sugar says serving size 1 teaspoon has 4 g sugar, and my white sugar says serving size of 2 teaspoon has 8 g.    That's measured in the lab, using a standard US teaspoon, leveled off.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/added-sugar-in-the-diet/

But when we add sugar to food at home, we probably heap up the spoon a bit, so it would make sense to use 5 g.  If you see someone dumping 9 teaspoons of sugar into a cup of iced coffee, it would be totally appropriate to say "Are you out of your mind?  Do you realize that you've just put 45 g of sugar in that?!?!?!"

(It was just once, and I was following the recipe for a DIY frappuccino.)

[biobook]

BTW, WIC (in NJ) gives yogurt, but they only allow low fat or fat-free. The kosher fat-free one has 40 grams of sugar in an 8 oz serving. That means 8 teaspoons of sugar in a cup.

Imagine putting 8 spoons of sugar into a coffee? But that's what WIC wants us to feed our children, because after all, it's fat-free.

Yogurt is different from cereal because it contains a natural sugar, lactose, just like milk does.  To see how much sugar is added to the sweetened yogurt, you have to subtract the lactose from the total sugar.  For example, Mehadrin 7 oz containers. http://www.mehadrin.com/productdetail/natural-low-fat
Plain yogurt has 14 g sugars, and since there's no sugar in the ingredients, this is all lactose.
Strawberry yogurt has 31 g sugars, so subtracting 14 g for lactose gives about 17 g added sugar, or about 4 teaspoons in all that gooey syrup or jam or whatever it is. 

This sort of confusion led the FDA to change the labels on food, so that now they're supposed to specify ADDED sugar rather than just total sugars, but small companies were given more time to re-do the labels, so it might take a while to see it on the kosher yogurts.
https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-new-nutrition-facts-label

[AsherO]

Yogurt is different from cereal because it contains a natural sugar, lactose, just like milk does.  To see how much sugar is added to the sweetened yogurt, you have to subtract the lactose from the total sugar.  For example, Mehadrin 7 oz containers. http://www.mehadrin.com/productdetail/natural-low-fat
Plain yogurt has 14 g sugars, and since there's no sugar in the ingredients, this is all lactose.
Strawberry yogurt has 31 g sugars, so subtracting 14 g for lactose gives about 17 g added sugar, or about 4 teaspoons in all that gooey syrup or jam or whatever it is. 

This sort of confusion led the FDA to change the labels on food, so that now they're supposed to specify ADDED sugar rather than just total sugars, but small companies were given more time to re-do the labels, so it might take a while to see it on the kosher yogurts.
https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-new-nutrition-facts-label

Thanks. The added sugar numbers are atrocious, can’t they make it taste okay by adding natural sugars like fruit instead? I’d gladly pay the premium.

I find that the French Makabi cheese cups are relatively low in sugar content and taste great.

[YitzyS]

Thanks. The added sugar numbers are atrocious, can’t they make it taste okay by adding natural sugars like fruit instead? I’d gladly pay the premium.

I find that the French Makabi cheese cups are relatively low in sugar content and taste great.

I think the ones with a higher fat content have less sugar. But WIC is stuck on the "fat is bad" mindset, so they sacrifice added sugar to keep fat down...

[biobook]

Thanks. The added sugar numbers are atrocious, can’t they make it taste okay by adding natural sugars like fruit instead? I’d gladly pay the premium.

I think plain fruit would spoil too quickly, and sugar acts as a preservative.  They could use sugar derived from fruit rather than from sugar cane or sugar beets.  But it would still be considered "added sugar". 

There's a jam that's "sweetened with ingredients made from real fruit", probably from concentrated apple juice or grape juice.  So no added table sugar or corn syrup.  But when you look at the nutrients, one tablespoon has 10 g of sugar, of which 9 grams are added sugar.  So just because it comes from fruit, doesn't make it a low sugar food.   
 https://www.smuckers.com/products/fruit-spreads/simply-fruit/simply-fruit-seedless-strawberry-spreadable-fruit
 

I find that the French Makabi cheese cups are relatively low in sugar content and taste great.

I've never seen this.  Is it meant to be scooped out and eaten like yogurt?  Or do you spread it on bread like cream cheese?