Episode 8 Rip Off Britain: Food

There's a lot we don't know about the food on our plates.

And the shops and the labels don't always tell you the whole story.

I think they encourage you to buy more than you need

and that causes a lot of waste.

Whether you're staying in or going out,

you've told us you can feel ripped off by the promises

made about what you eat and what you pay for it.

It makes my blood boil because I feel like they are tricking people.

From claims that just don't stack up to the secrets behind the packaging,

we uncover the truth about Britain's food

so you can be sure you're getting what you expect

at the right price.

Your food, your money.

This is Rip Off Britain.

Hello and welcome to Rip Off Britain,

where today we're looking into something

that it seems we just can't get enough of

and yet at the same time, we're always being warned about - sugar.

You know, Julia, if you put that word into the NHS website,

the advice is very clear -

most adults and children in the UK eat far too much of it.

But we may not always be aware of that because even when

you've bought something that you know contains sugar,

you may not realise quite how much,

and you can forget about a spoonful of sugar.

There are some well-known products with perhaps closer to a trowel-ful.

Well, sugar can pop up in extraordinary amounts

in all sorts of places.

So we'll be revealing what some of those are

and finding out why watching how much sugar you eat can be

a lot harder than you might think.

Coming up - it's the most important meal of the day,

but how many of us are having a healthy breakfast?

Manufacturers have convinced us, very cleverly, that a bowl of cereal

is the healthiest option for us at breakfast time,

and that's actually very misleading.

They're actually not that nutritious,

they're insubstantial foods.

And fruit smoothies may be an easy way to get some of your five-a-day,

but could they have more in common

with your average soft drink than you might think?

My younger son Stanley started to complain over toothache.

So I went to see the dentist, who told me, to my horror,

that he actually had quite severe tooth decay.

Now, you may not think that you have a sweet tooth,

but you'd be very surprised by how much sugar goes into foods

that we don't always think of as sweet.

And it's this hidden sugar that's causing some experts to say

that we're dangerously addicted to the sweet stuff.

If you don't put sugar in your tea or coffee,

or sprinkle it on your cereal,

it's very easy to assume that you don't have much of it.

But the chances are you're wrong, because you could be eating

more than you think without even realising.

Oh, a very nice library. Gorgeous.

'Dr Aseem Malhotra is a cardiologist

'and the Scientific Director of the campaign group

'Action On Sugar who firmly believe that we eat too much sugar.'

I look back for example on my own childhood,

my mum was a wonderful baker, so she made these great cakes,

lots of biscuits and little buns and all sorts of things.

I was 7st 2lb at the time and I thought I was very healthy.

So we've always had sugar in our diets,

so what is the change?

Absolutely, you make a good point there.

In my view, there's nothing wrong with the occasional treat,

but the problem is the occasional treat has now insinuated itself

within the daily diets of most people.

A third of sugar consumption comes from sugary drinks,

about a sixth comes from items that people normally associated

as being potentially junk food or treats -

things like ice cream, biscuits and cakes.

But up to half of sugar is consumed in products or foods

that people don't associate as being harmful, such as breads,

salad dressings, ketchup.

Now, the sugar industry disputes those figures,

saying that the amount that we actually consume is much lower.

Although there continues to be fierce debate,

Aseem and others like him believe that hidden sugars,

those we don't even think we're eating,

are a root cause of Britain's obesity crisis,

and the health problems that can walk hand-in-hand

with being overweight.

Like an estimated 2.7 million people in the UK,

Nigel Greensitt has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes -

a condition for which being overweight or obese is a key risk.

Well, to be quite honest with you,

I don't think it came as a surprise to me.

It was one of those things that had been going on for a bit,

the doctors had been telling me

previously that my glucose levels had been creeping up.

So, it eventually got to the stage where they said,

"Right, you've gone over now."

When Nigel was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes,

he was forced to change his approach to all foods,

not just the ones that were obviously sweet.

You'd be surprised, actually.

Baked beans. Although people say they are good for diabetics,

they actually do have considerable amounts of sugar in them.

In the early days, if I was eating pasta,

I would be buying some of the ready-made sauces.

When you look at the labels, you see they've got sugar in them,

so these days I don't do that,

so I can control the amount of sugar

that's going into what I'm eating that way.

Nigel's diabetes has also forced him to look closely at the food he buys,

meaning a simple supermarket shop can take hours, as he has to

check even unexpected items to see how much sugar might be inside.

I will spend quite a bit of time looking at labels to see

how much sugar is in things, how much fat is in things.

There was a salad dressing that I'd never seen before.

I was looking at the label and it's between 25 and 27% sugar

and that's in a salad dressing!

That seems ridiculous to me.

Why would you want that and are people becoming programmed to

eating these things with the sugars in them?

Some health campaigners believe that the guideline daily amount,

or GDA, for how much sugar we should eat is far too high.

They believe we should be advised to eat less sugar,

and Dr Malhotra agrees.

So what is the advice, then, as to the amount of sugar

that on average we should have every day?

What the American Heart Association did in 2009 is they reviewed

the amount of added sugar,

that they were concerned about was being consumed in the American diet,

and they recommended a limit for the average adult male

of nine teaspoons a day...

-Nine?

-Nine.

..and the average adult female, six teaspoons a day.

There is no official definition of how much sugar a teaspoon represents

but it's widely used as shorthand.

Generally around 4g is implied,

although some think it's more like 5g.

Well, we were talking about fizzy drinks.

Here, I have a can of fizzy drink,

which would be enjoyed by adult and child alike.

The labelling on this can suggests that this represents

39% of your guideline daily amount,

suggesting that it's OK to have up to two and a half cans

-of these a day.

-And yet if you take that analysis

and use the American reading of only three teaspoons

for a child between four and eight,

there you have three times the amount in just one can.

Absolutely. And, of course, I believe in personal responsibility

but personal responsibility also means giving the public

and the consumer the correct information.

Of course, as things stand, all Coke are doing is using

the official recommended GDA amounts.

Now, as yet, neither government on either side of the Atlantic

has officially reduced the recommended sugar intake.

But surely the health campaigners realise that, for many people,

sugar is an integral part of their diet?

People would say "I've got to live, I've got to shop,

"I've got to feed my family every day,"

so what would you say to cut out and what would you say is all right?

I think there's a very simple concept actually which I try to promote,

and I tell my patients, is try and eat real food.

Try and eat food that you can cook,

that doesn't necessarily come out of a packet

that you know is full of sugar, to avoid sugary drinks.

You can still enjoy your food,

but I would say eat food that's real food, not processed food.

-So eat fresh?

-Absolutely.

Well, recently, I've been on a low-sugar diet for medical reasons

just to keep my blood sugar levels down

and one of the things my doctor told me

was to cut down on my sugar intake

and this is my way to achieve that.

Well, I'm going to show you today, actually, it's relatively easy.

Now, this is my method.

Now, for breakfast, of course,

no toast, no bread. So I could have porridge once a week,

or this is a particularly measured-out granola

which actually tastes divine.

Berries are good, actually, any kind of berries, apparently,

so if you want to add some berries to your porridge or to your granola,

that's fine and, of course, the yoghurt.

Now, we move down to lunch.

Now, particularly when we're out and about,

sometimes it's hard when you're on the move and working

to get the right things for lunch.

But basically, I could have soup or a good salad

and to that, you can add chicken or anything you want.

I just have some cheese and ham here today,

but it's good protein, good salad and lots of veggies in the soup.

Coming to dinner.

Well, dinner, really, you can have anything

because this is all protein -

protein in chicken, protein in fish -

I find that I do have to add an extra chunky vegetable

like cauliflower or broccoli but, of course,

you can have any amount of vegetables,

and the colour is absolutely gorgeous

and it feels healthy and actually I don't find dinner a problem at all.

Mind you, I'm not goodie-two-shoes all the time.

I do occasionally have a bit of a dessert,

but we all need to make our own judgements about how much sugar

we feel comfortable with consuming.

We contacted Sugar Nutrition UK,

a research body principally funded by sugar manufacturers,

who stressed that "expert committees",

"health professionals" and "governments"

have all concluded that sugar can be enjoyed

as part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

And as for the consequences of eating too much sugar,

they told us "a recent review commissioned

"by the World Health Organisation

"concluded that it is the over-consumption of calories

"that result in weight gain, and is not specific to sugar" -

a conclusion that they insist is endorsed by other expert evidence.

I also went to meet Gaynor Bussell,

a dietician whom Sugar Nutrition UK suggested we speak to

and who specialises in obesity and weight management.

Does she believe that we should eat less sugar?

The experts, our government

and also now the European Parliament have had experts look at these

and the European Parliament hasn't actually put a limit

on how much sugar people can have. But our experts in the UK

have said that it's fine to have up to 90g of sugars a day.

How many spoonfuls of sugar would that be, roughly?

Well, it's 5g of sugar in a teaspoon

so 90g is going to be about 18 teaspoons.

To me, that is horrific.

Well, if you think of it as sugars coming from fruit, fruit juice,

milk sugar, which is lactose,

even honey, fructose,

sugar that you would put in bread to make the yeast go,

so it's not just the pure white stuff that you might think of.

It's coming from a lot of different sources.

Now, I do understand that.

But, as a nation, we are having too much sugar.

About 10% more, on average, than we should.

As a dietician, and you accept that people are having too much sugar,

then where does your responsibility lie to train, for example,

young mothers with young children how to bring up their kids without

having a bar of chocolate that's going to be their full day's intake,

without having soft drinks,

that are packed with eight, nine, ten spoonfuls of sugar?

Where do you start?

There are lots of programmes that look at children

and work with the mothers,

and one of the things we would talk about

is we'd show how much sugar is in a biscuit or a Mars bar

so people can see visibly how much of that is sugar.

And we would say now as a snack, a healthier snack,

better for your teeth and everything is maybe to have a piece of fruit

and not have that Mars bar.

I would say a Mars bar is quite a big chunk for a little child

to have as a snack.

The things that are causing heart disease and the obesity

and diabetes is not about the amount of sugar in our food

or hidden sugars or whatever you're calling them,

it's about a lot of things.

We're over-consuming a lot more saturated fat than we should,

our diet is not as nutritious as it used to be,

people can't afford it,

so there's a lot of messages out there that need to be brought across

and I don't think that just homing in on sugar

is actually helpful at all.

So the hot debate goes on.

And while some say the risks of sugar are overblown,

you're unlikely to come across a doctor

who'd tell you to eat more of it.

So keeping a closer eye on your sugar intake

certainly won't do you any harm, and may even do you some good.

Next, breakfast.

We're always being told that it is the most important meal of the day

and we probably all know how it feels

if by mid-morning, you've skipped it.

But an awful lot of people who do have breakfast

still aren't giving themselves quite the healthy start

that they think, and you might be surprised

by what's actually recommended.

The Great British Breakfast,

whether it's a full English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh,

has traditionally been big, fried and meaty.

But the modern-day breakfast is very different - in fact,

we've firmly turned our backs on the good old fry-up

in favour of something altogether more convenient.

Here in Britain, we're breakfast-cereal crazy.

We eat more of the stuff than any other country in the world

with the exception of America.

And of course we're bombarded with advertisements from various

manufacturers trying to tempt us to buy their brand above anyone else's.

Now, a lot of those advertisements are aimed at families

and a lot of claims are made about the nutritional value

of individual cereals.

But how much of that should we be taken in by?

"Fortified with vitamins and iron."

"Wholegrain."

"Low in saturated fat."

They're all statements proudly made on the box,

but they could be drawing attention away from sometimes

rather surprising levels of other ingredients, like sugar and salt?

These Honey Monster Sugar Puffs say they're a source of fibre and vitamins,

but they're also 31% sugar -

that's over 9g a serving.

Even when you look beyond sweet cereals, you might get a surprise.

For example, a bowl of All Bran accounts for 8% of an adult's

daily sugar and salt allowances.

And if you think that skipping cereals in favour of toast

is any better, well, think again -

one white slice can contain 8% of your guideline daily amount of salt

and that's before you even think about spreading anything on it!

So what does make a healthy breakfast?

Each person's going to take one scoop...

Tracey Cooke runs cookery classes for kids with a firm emphasis

on helping them to catch the healthy-eating habit early.

Who can tell me what they've had for breakfast today?

Sam?

Coco Pops.

Coco Pops.

Right, we'll talk more about what's healthy, but if you had

the choice of just porridge or some Coco Pops,

which do you think you would choose?

-Lucy?

-Porridge.

Porridge, why's that?

Because having chocolate for breakfast is disgusting.

Well, Lucy may think that's disgusting,

but not all her classmates would agree.

Kellogg's Coco Pops have been a family favourite for decades,

but parents who take a close look at the box may not be so impressed.

The pack says that it contains 35g of sugar per 100g of cereal.

That's 35%.

Many other top-selling brands have similarly high sugar levels.

Nestle Frosted Shreddies contain 28.8% sugar.

Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Chocolate have 40% sugar.

And one of the leading cereals

that you might expect to be better for you

actually has nearly as much.

Dorset Cereals Luscious Berries and Cherries is 39.6% sugar.

So before you even think about sprinkling on any extra,

your daily bowl of cereal has already got quite a large proportion

of your daily intake of sugar which means that

an awful lot of kids are going to school in an unexpectedly sweet way.

Sarah Vince-Cain is a Community Paediatric Dietician in Manchester

who works with overweight children and their families.

We see children with teeth problems, decaying teeth, extractions.

So, high-sugar diets are a problem.

Sugary cereals do contribute to this issue,

sugary drinks probably more so.

So when I see a child and a family,

one of the first questions I ask about is their breakfast habits,

and what kind of cereal they're choosing if they are having a cereal.

Sarah and her fellow dieticians are not anti-cereal,

in fact quite the reverse.

But she says the key is which ones we choose

and how much of them we eat.

Breakfast cereals are really important for children,

they've got lots of vitamins and minerals, and calcium with the milk

so I can't recommend them highly enough.

However, some of these cereals do look a little bit too tempting,

I would say. The more these products are processed,

the faster they're absorbed into the body

and they're not going to make children feel fuller for longer.

It's going to be difficult for them

to be sustained throughout the school morning.

Some of these I might give children as a dessert

rather than a breakfast.

Cereal manufacturers are adamant that their breakfasts

are a valuable part of a balanced diet

and that they market their products responsibly.

But some politicians are not convinced

and they want the Government to step in.

Andy Burnham is Labour's Shadow Health Secretary.

I am uncomfortable with that idea that any child sits down

to food at breakfast time that is getting up to 40% sugar.

I would say to other MPs in Parliament,

are we really sure we are doing enough at the moment to

protect children from some of the worse excesses of the food industry?

Do you know? I don't think we can.

I think it's time for Parliament to act

and say, "Look, no-one's going to make products that go over that

"because they're damaging to our children's health."

He is proposing a cap on the total amount of sugar

in our breakfast cereals.

That would help all parents

because then they would know that no product they're buying

in a supermarket can be over 30% sugar.

The government's definitely got a job to do in standing behind

the parents, making things simpler

and setting basic maximum levels that no product should go over.

Campaigning journalist Joanna Blythman

is concerned about the way that they can be marketed

as a healthier choice.

Manufacturers have convinced us, very cleverly, that a bowl of cereal

is the healthiest option for us at breakfast time

and that's actually very misleading.

The first problem is that many of the cereal products

have extremely high levels of sugar and also of salt.

That's because they wouldn't taste of anything unless they had that.

But the other problem is that

they're actually not that nutritious,

they're insubstantial foods.

But how do cereals compare with the good old Full English?

Well, there's little surprise that bacon and eggs pack more fat

than most cereals we've found, but when it comes to sugar,

they're the out-and-out winners with the lowest amounts.

However, it seems that salt can be harder to avoid.

A typical cooked breakfast can pack around two-thirds

of your guideline daily amount of salt.

Of course, choose carefully,

and any type of breakfast can be healthy.

And Joanna would rather follow the age-old advice

of "go to work on an egg".

I would be much happier to see

a child eat a traditional cooked breakfast of some description,

preferably eggs which is one of the most nutritious,

in fact the most nutritional breakfast food

that I can think of, than I would be to see them eating a bowl of cereal,

because they will actually keep children going for longer.

Dr Carrie Ruxton is a dietician

with the Breakfast Cereal Information Service,

part of the group which represents cereal manufacturers.

I agree that we need to reduce sugar intakes

because, certainly, children's sugar intakes are too high.

But if you look at where people get their daily sugar intakes from,

the biggest proportion is from

soft drinks, biscuits, cakes and confectionaries.

Cereal manufacturers say they've been cutting the sugar

and salt content of their cereals for a number of years,

but it has to be a gradual process.

The breakfast cereal industry as a whole have cut

about 57% of salt out of breakfast cereals over the last few years

so that strategy has actually worked very well.

If you then try and apply that to sugar, that is much more difficult

because again, they've been working to reduce sugar levels but at

some point, you will reach a point where consumer acceptability drops.

And in any case, the industry says we shouldn't be looking at just

the sugar and the salt.

I do think breakfast cereal is a healthy option for children.

The reason is, is because breakfast cereals contribute very little

to daily calorie intake, salt, sugar,

they are a good source of fibre,

particularly if you go for the higher fibre cereals,

and most importantly because they're fortified,

they deliver between 15 and 25% of children's requirements

for vitamins and minerals.

We also spoke to the cereal manufacturers themselves.

Kellogg's told us that over the past 12 years, they have

"taken out 50% of salt" in their cereals.

And they're confident that people know "there is no hidden sugar"

in their foods because they "clearly label each pack"

so that people can decide if they want to buy it.

They added that products like Coco Pops have been around for

"more than 60 years" so, by now, most people know they contain sugar.

Meanwhile, the makers of Sugar Puffs say that from March of last year,

they reduced the cereal's level of sugar, but point out that they

offer a range of cereals and snacks so consumers do have a choice.

Cereal Partners, the makers of Shreddies and other cereals,

told us that they have

"a commitment to make eating a healthier breakfast easier",

and have reduced sugar content in some brands

"by as much as 30%."

And Dorset Cereals told us that it's important to

distinguish between "refined sugar" and "naturally-occurring" sugars.

They said that 90% of the sugar in their Luscious Berries

and Cherries muesli is natural sugar from dried fruit,

which also "adds minerals, vitamins and fibre" to your diet,

but they also point out that they have recently reduced

the amount of sugar in the cereal.

This is another recipe you can use for a really nice healthy breakfast.

But back at the cookery class, Tracey's keen to demonstrate

that a cooked breakfast can be as much fun as a sugary one.

What you're trying to do is keep the wall of the mushrooms secure.

Let's get them in the oven.

Here they come.

And it looks like the kids in the class

are on their way to being converted.

I like egg, and I like cheese and I've never tried them together

and it tastes...

they just taste nice together.

I probably would have it for breakfast but without the mushroom.

So the jury is still out on the mushroom.

But the enthusiasm for the egg will delight those who believe

that the healthiest breakfasts for children

don't necessarily have to come out of a box.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain,

0%, low fat, or light.

It may appear to be the healthier alternative,

but when the fat's taken out, has something else been put back in?

I tend to buy the low-fat because I'm thinking it is better for me.

I'm not really sure that it is

because when you look on the labels,

there's lots of sugars.

Of course, it's not just what you eat that determines

how much sugar you consume, but what you drink as well.

There was a time when barely a cuppa was brewed without

a spoonful of sugar or three being stirred in,

and, of course, we all know that

many soft drinks can be loaded with sugar too.

But what you may not realise is that even those drinks

we assume are good for us may, in fact, be full of the white stuff.

Take a bunch of lovely, wholesome fruit -

a banana, some strawberries, maybe an orange.

Whizz them all together and add, well, nothing,

and, hey presto, you've made yourself a delicious fresh fruit smoothie.

There can be few things that look so healthy but taste this sweet.

And Yorkshire mother Claire Donnelly is one of the many people

who thought smoothies were the perfect way

of getting more fruit into your diet.

I think smoothies are kind of sold and marketed as a healthy option.

The children, it was one of their five-a-day,

and I think that's quite persuasive as a mum when you're quite busy,

and you're very conscious of getting them to consume enough fruit.

Claire thought she'd been doing the right thing by banning

her two young boys from drinking fizzy drinks,

and instead encouraging them to have fruit-based drinks, like smoothies.

Most mums that I know, we work hard to make sure

our children eat and drink the right things,

and I think anything containing fruit is automatically

kind of labelled in your mind as good.

Last year in the UK, we drank almost 70 million litres of smoothies.

But, hold on, there's a catch.

The reason smoothies taste so sweet is they are jam-packed with sugar -

naturally-occurring sugar of course, rather than the added kind,

but sugar nonetheless.

In fact, there might be more sugar in your average smoothie

than you think, so we decided to put it to the test.

We hits the streets of Tunbridge Wells armed with one can of Coke,

and a bottle of the UK's best-selling smoothie brand, Innocent,

and we asked passers-by to drop a ball into the bowl

behind the drink they thought had more sugar.

-I'd probably say the smoothie.

-Right.

-The one with the most sugar.

-Oh, no sugar, I think.

It's actually the smoothie, with 34.3g per serving,

that has more sugar.

The Coke has 26.5g.

-Does that surprise you?

-That really surprises me.

Actually, you're right.

You may be surprised to learn that actually this one

-has far more sugar in it.

-Has it?

-Yes.

You're right, the smoothie has more sugar in it than the Coca Cola.

Well, two of you are wrong and one of you is right.

-Does that surprise you?

-I got it right.

-Well, why is that?

Because sugar...

When it's in smoothie form, it breaks down the fibre,

which means the natural sugars from the fruit

aren't actually good for you.

Whereas if you had them as fruit form,

it's better for you to have it as fruit as opposed to a smoothie.

He's completely right.

And in fact, more than half the people we spoke to

did correctly guess that the smoothie was the more sugary option.

But it's not just THIS brand of smoothie that's packed with sugar.

In fact, one survey looked at 52 smoothies

and 41 contained more sugar than the equivalent sized can of coke.

When we asked Innocent about the amount of sugar in their products,

they stressed that their smoothies are made entirely from fruit,

and that they never add sugar.

They said a 250ml smoothie contains the same amount

of naturally occurring sugar as two portions of fruit

and that research shows that the sugar in fruit drinks has

a low glycaemic index, so is more slowly absorbed by your body.

They added that the nutrients from the fruit mean

one bottle counts as two of your five a day.

But while millions of us drink smoothies

as a way of consuming more fruit,

some say the benefits come at a price.

And the nation's dentists are seriously concerned

that the drive to improve our eating habits

may be inadvertently damaging our teeth.

After all, it's by no means just smoothies that are surprisingly sugary.

A 250ml glass of orange juice

contains 25.5g of sugar -

that's the same as six Hobnob biscuits.

And though you probably wouldn't give your child six Hobnobs to eat,

you might well inadvertently feed them

the 25.5 grams of sugar in the juice.

And back in Yorkshire,

Clare has learnt the possible effects of all this the hard way.

My younger son Stanley started to complain over toothache

which I was quite surprised about,

but he isn't a child who complains very often.

So I knew that if he said he was in pain, he was in pain.

So we went to see the dentist,

and we managed to see him that day actually, who told me, to my horror,

that he actually had quite severe tooth decay.

It turned out, after a week of antibiotics,

that he did need to have the tooth removed.

So it was quite a traumatic experience for Stan,

he was quite brave. To be fair he didn't even cry,

but for me as a mum, it was really distressing

because I didn't want to see him having to go through that,

and to be honest I was really shocked it had happened,

it wasn't something I'd have expected to happen.

But I also felt really guilty. I felt I'd let him down, really.

Clare had thought she had been doing her bit

to look after her children's teeth.

Mortified, she wanted to know what had caused the decay.

I spoke to the dentist and the dental nurse before I left

about how I could work with them to make sure this didn't happen again,

so I spoke to them about the diet we had, which I thought was good.

And it was when I spoke to them in more detail

that they advised me about things I should have been avoiding.

And the things I should have been avoiding were fruit juice,

which they didn't have a great deal of,

smoothies, which we had used a lot.

It was having an excess of sugar, you know,

and often that came from the drinks that children consumed.

The British Dental Association agrees that we need to be careful

how many fruity drinks we consume, especially between meals.

Certainly the five-a-day message is very important

for general health and for oral health.

And so some of these convenient ways of doing it,

and I think smoothies could probably be included in that,

seems like a really good solution

because it apparently solves the problem

but it also potentially brings in a different problem at the same time.

When it comes to our teeth, there is a hierarchy of sugar.

Refined sugar added to food and drink is the worst for our gnashers.

Most smoothies don't have any of that.

But with so much fruit mashed together inside,

it's the sheer concentration of all that naturally occurring sugar

which makes them a pretty sweet mouthful.

It's important that parents do know the quantities of sugar

that are in smoothies, so that they can restrict that

or balance it for their child in any given day.

There's no problem generally with smoothies,

but keep them to meal times,

or keep them to as fewer episodes during the day as possible

because then the tooth enamel is under threat

for shorter periods of time.

That's a message that Clare has certainly taken to heart.

Compared to eating an apple, or eating a banana,

the way that that fruit has been treated means

that the sugar is now acting differently on their teeth.

I think that's the part I was missing,

that's the kind of education I didn't have.

I think the assumption is because it contains fruit, it's healthy,

but I think it's about how you're consuming that fruit

and at the end of the day for us now,

eating an apple after a meal is the way that we consume fruit.

The health conscious among us wouldn't hesitate to pick up

a low-fat or no-fat product over its full-fat counterpart.

But every time we reach for a low-fat product,

we could unknowingly be introducing

surprisingly high levels of sugar into our diets.

And that's because, when the fat is removed,

often sugar is added for taste.

Quite a few of you have been in touch to say that you're frustrated

and angry with the food industry, because you feel that you're being

misled about how healthy these low-fat and diet foods actually are.

As you know, losing weight can be tough.

And once you've lost the weight, keeping it off can be even harder.

I've been dieting probably on and off for 25 years.

Motorbike fanatic Rachel Sturman from Norfolk is a serial slimmer.

I've tried Weight Watchers, I've tried Rosemary Conley,

Slimming World, which I'm doing at the moment.

I've also tried liquid diets, like Herbal Life

and the Slim-Fast plan and the Cambridge Diet.

Some say, look for no more than 4% fat per 100g,

some say you can eat large quantities of certain foods

without putting on weight and still lose weight,

some incorporate an exercise plan.

For years, the advice has been to cut down on fat,

so Rachel's been buying low-fat foods

for almost as long as she's been dieting.

I eat a lot of low-fat yoghurts. I really enjoy fruit and yoghurt.

I love cheese, so I do try to watch how much cheese I eat.

I'm aware of the high fat content, so I go for the half-fat options.

But it was only when she paid close attention to the labels

on her shopping that Rachel noticed something surprising

lurking behind the healthy low-fat message - sugar.

I tend to buy the low-fat because I'm thinking it's better for me.

I'm not really sure it is

because when you look on the labels, there's lots of sugars.

Take for example this Yeo Valley, fat-free natural yoghurt.

It has a full 3 grams more sugar per pot

than its full-fat counterpart.

But yogurts aren't the only low-fat foods where that's the case.

The same can be true in everything, from ready meals to biscuits.

As the label says, these lighter digestives have 30% less fat

than regular digestive biscuits.

But look carefully and you'll see they also have 20% more sugar.

And there's a simple reason why.

The fact is that when you strip a product of fat,

what suffers is the flavour, and in order to put the taste back in,

well, the manufacturer packs it with sugar.

Rachel first spotted all this

when comparing the three versions of Philadelphia soft cheese available.

The one with the lowest amount of fat - the Lightest variety -

has two-thirds more sugar than the regular product,

although this is still considered to be relatively low.

But it was seeing this Activia yoghurt

that prompted her to write to us.

While it proudly says 0% fat on the label, it actually accounts

for almost a fifth of your daily allowance of sugar -

the equivalent of just over four teaspoons of it.

I've been trying to lose weight for a long time,

I've followed different plans, generally it's all around low fat.

It bothers me that manufacturers can get away with adding sugar

and labelling it as a diet product.

So if you're trying to lose weight,

what's the difference between fat and sugar?

And is one a bigger evil than the other?

-Hi, Rachel, how are you?

-Hello, fine, thank you.

We took Rachel to meet dietician Emer Delaney to find out.

So when you remove a fat from a product,

you're taking away the palatability so often it doesn't taste very well,

so what the manufacturers will do is actually put

a lot of sugar into the product so that it tastes quite nice.

So whilst they are low in fat, they are also quite high in sugar.

-Yeah.

-And having too much sugar, if you're not using that energy

and burning it off, your body will just transfer it to just fat.

There's lots of options on the shelves -

low fat, 0%, light, half-fat -

what's the difference between all of these?

These are very, very confusing for consumers.

There isn't even any legislation

to say a "light" product has to have X amount of sugar or fat.

So, for example, with some biscuits you can buy,

people think the lighter option is the best.

But when you compare that to the original product,

there can actually be the same amount of sugar

in both your light and your regular products.

Or indeed, as we found, there could actually be

more in the low-fat varieties than the standard ones.

So if you're trying to make sense of the labels,

how much sugar, and fat, should you be looking for?

Per 100 grams, how much is a good, or healthy, sugar amount?

What you're looking for is, with sugar,

it's 5 grams per 100 grams would be considered as low in sugar.

So, per 100 grams, how much fat

should we be looking for, as a healthy option?

Something that is considered low fat is 5 grams of fat per 100 grams,

so that's a good point to start at.

In some cases, slightly more sugar could be a price that's worth paying

if the amount of fat in a product has been cut to really low levels.

And not all low-fat products are made with more sugar to compensate.

For example, this mayonnaise, this shepherd's pie

and this rice pudding all have a lot less fat,

but only a little more sugar than the regular versions.

In your opinion, would you say it's better to eat

a full-fat option or the low-fat option?

-Which is healthier?

-That's a difficult question to answer.

I think it very much depends on the person.

So if somebody is trying to lose weight and they are looking at

their overall calorie and fat and sugar intake,

then low-fat products can have a part in their diet.

So if I carry on eating low-fat products,

you see that as a good thing?

Yes, once you're choosing the right ones, absolutely.

If there isn't a huge amount of sugar in them

and you have found something you enjoy, that you enjoy eating,

cos that's obviously an important part of it as well.

And if it's low in fat and calories and sugar,

then yeah, it's a really good option.

We asked Philadelphia, Yeo Valley,

and McVities why some of their low-fat products are actually

higher in sugar than their regular counterparts.

McVities declined to comment.

Philadelphia and Yeo Valley told us that the sugar in their products

isn't added sugar at all,

but lactose - naturally occurring sugars from milk solids

which are added to the product when the fat is taken away.

Danone, the makers of Activia, said the same,

while also stressing that their products are clearly labelled

to show how much fat and sugar they contain

and they comply with all labelling regulations.

Finally, the makers of Philadelphia also pointed out

that the level of sugar in their Lightest product,

while marginally higher than the rest of the range, is still low.

But while Rachel is now more confident

that she can navigate the minefield of low-fat meals,

she still reckons the labelling on some foods isn't sufficiently clear

to stop people like her from ending up with a not-so-sweet surprise.

If it's high in something, let's have "high" written on there.

If it's low in something, let's have "low".

I would like a universal system that is easy to understand.

Sugar is sugar, at the end of a day, and I would like to see

how much sugar I'm really having in a low-fat product.

Here at Rip Off Britain, we're always ready to investigate

more of your stories, and not just about food.

Confused over your bills?

Or just trying to wade through never-ending small print?

I mean, why is it in small print if they want you to read it?

Maybe you're unsure what to do when you discover you've lost out,

and that "great deal" has ended up costing you money.

All my money is very hard earned.

So when I go to spend it, I expect value for money.

Or you might have a cautionary tale of your own

and want to share the mistakes you've made with us.

You can write to us at...

Or send us an email to...

The Rip Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.

Well, I think it's clear that sugar really can play a valuable role in a balanced diet.

But as we've heard, it's the sweet stuff added to other foods,

that we may not even know is there,

that can mean we end up eating more of it than we should.

Which means it's always worth reading the label

to see just how much sugar is in what you are buying

even if, on the surface, you might not expect to find much there.

You may get a bit of a shock.

Which we have done with some of the foods we've seen in the programme.

And just because a product may market itself as healthy,

it is worth taking care

to consider very carefully exactly what's in it.

Well, that's all we have time for today.

Do keep your stories coming,

as we'll be back very soon to investigate more of them.

-Until then, from us, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.