There are about seven teaspoons of sugar in one small bottle of cola
The WHO suggests keeping added sugar to about six teaspoons a day for the best health. One cold drink can use up all of it.
Pick up any 300 ml bottle of cola or a packaged "fruit drink" and turn it round to the nutrition label. You will usually find somewhere between 25 and 35 grams of sugar. A level teaspoon of sugar weighs about 4 grams. So a single small bottle can hold around six to nine teaspoons. Picture spooning that into a glass of water and drinking it. Few of us would.
The World Health Organization recommends that "free sugars", the sugar added to food and drink plus the sugar in honey, syrups and juices, should make up less than 10% of daily energy, and ideally under 5%. For an adult that ideal works out to about 25 grams, or six teaspoons, for the whole day.
Sugar in drinks is the easiest kind to overdo, because liquid calories don't fill you up the way food does. You drink the cola and eat the same meal anyway. Regular sugary drinks are linked to weight gain, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver and tooth decay. Packaged juices marketed as healthy are often not much better, and even fresh fruit juice loses the fibre that slows sugar down.
Easy swaps - Nimbu pani with a pinch of salt and very little sugar, chaas, plain soda with lime, or coconut water. - Eat the fruit rather than drinking the juice. - If you are cutting down, go from daily to weekends, then to occasions. Your taste changes faster than you'd think. - Check "added sugar" on labels. "No added sugar" juices can still be high in natural sugar. - Keep sweet drinks out of the fridge at home. Children drink what is there.
Where this comes from - World Health Organization. Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children, 2015. - Malik VS, Hu FB. The role of sugar-sweetened beverages in the global epidemics of obesity and chronic diseases. Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 2022.
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