Why 100% fruit juice should come with a sugar warning label

Mail & Guardian

24-06-2025

Drinking just one sugar-sweetened beverage (for example sodas or fruit juice with artificially added sugar) a day raises the chances of a child being overweight by more than half. (Towfiqu Barbhuiya/Unsplash)
Apples, oranges and grapes are healthy fruits. But when they are turned into juice they pack as much, or more, sugar than some sodas or energy drinks.
Under South Africa's
won't be required to show a high sugar warning on their packaging because their sugars are 'naturally occurring'. But because of their sugar content, nutritional experts
'Coke has too much sugar, but fruit juices also have too much natural sugar,' says Edzani Mphaphuli, executive director of
Sugar is helping drive South Africa's obesity rise. Over
That's part of what our proposed food labelling regulations are meant to combat.
Under the current draft — which the health department is still reviewing, according to spokesperson Foster Mohale — fruit juices will fall through a definition loophole.
But that's not what researchers who gave input on the rules recommended or what many public health experts
'Our evaluation used the criteria of 'free sugars', where all 100% fruit juices would have carried a warning label,' says Tamryn Frank, a researcher at the University of the Western Cape who was part of the technical team. 'That highlights the importance of reconsidering the best term to include when the final regulation is published.'
The draft regulations say any drink with more than 5g of sugar (just over one teaspoon) per 100ml, or any amount of
If passed in their current form, researchers say almost
Pure 100% fruit juices won't carry a warning label because their sugar is natural. But not all juices are completely natural — some contain added sugar or sweeteners — so those with more than just over a teaspoon of sugar per 100ml will still need to carry a 'high in sugar' warning.
We did the sums to work out which drinks have the most sugar and which will — or won't — need a warning label, according to the current version of the regulations.
Fruit juices
While they didn't have any
'Because they come straight from nature, people think they must be healthy. But it's not exactly the same thing as eating a single fruit,' explains Mphaphuli. 'Juice is highly concentrated and you need to dilute it with water if you're going to give it to a child [to reduce the sugar content].'
Whole fruits are filled with
A
South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition
earlier this year found that almost three-quarters of fruit juices have more sugar than the proposed limit. But, as regulations stand now, only 17% would require a warning label because most of the sugar is natural, not added (because the regulations only look at the total amount of sugar in products with added sugar and not those with natural sugars).
Sodas
Among the three sodas, Coke has the most sugar — and is the only one that contains
The WHO says an adult should not consume more than
Sodas are some of the sweetest drinks you can buy and, research shows, South Africans love them: we
Before South Africa's
While chemical sweeteners, which are often used in 'diet' drinks,
'None of these products are recommended as part of a healthy diet because they don't contain any nutrients other than sugar and energy,' says Makoma Bopape, a nutrition researcher and lecturer at the University of Limpopo. Bopape was part of the technical group who worked on the labels. 'What makes it worse is the fact that some contain sweeteners.'
Energy drinks
Monster has nearly four times more sugar than both Dragon and Power Play and all contain artificial sweeteners.
A 500ml can of Monster has around 13 teaspoons of sugar — more than the maximum sugar intake the WHO
Under the proposed regulations, these three drinks would all need a warning label — either for high sugar or containing artificial sweeteners.
Flavoured water
Of the three flavoured waters we looked at, Bonaqua Pump Lemon is the only one that does not contain any artificial sweeteners.
Even though they're often marketed as 'healthier' options, the flavoured waters we looked at had similar amounts of sugar and sweeteners as sodas. One option had both sugar and three sweeteners — making it more soda than water.
aQuelle naartjie and Thirsti berry use artificial sweeteners to keep the sugar low, but they respectively also contain nearly two and four full teaspoons of sugar in a 500ml bottle.
Bopape says plain water — not flavoured water — should be the preferred drink of choice.
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