Public Health England (PHE) has removed all baby and toddler foods from a new government app designed to alert parents to foods containing high levels of sugar, reports The Sunday Times.
PHE says it has temporarily removed baby foods from the Sugar Smart app while it decides how, or if, to distinguish between added sugar and naturally occurring sugar.
Products removed from the app include Fruit Bowl Strawberry Yoghurt Flakes (62% sugar). Also deleted is Heinz Apple Biscotti (20% sugar). Popular organic lines were also flagged up in the Sunday Times report, including Organix Raspberry & Apple Soft Oaty Bars (25.9% sugar) and Ella’s Kitchen Strawberries Apples (9.8% sugar).
Many products marketed for children include claims like “made with real fruit”, “100% organic” and “no-junk promise”. But some nutritionists say that the high levels of sugar in many of these foods mean they are unhealthy when eaten regularly.
Zoë Harcombe, an obesity expert, told the newspaper: “The ignorance about sugar is shocking. Sugar is sugar, the body doesn’t distinguish where it comes from. The sugar from fruit is no different from the glucose and fructose from sucrose — the body has no means of discerning one from the other.”
