Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:34am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Soft drink makers should invent and market a new category of semi-sweet beverages that will help wean Americans off their reliance on sugary drinks, nutrition experts said on Monday.

They proposed a new class of reduced-calorie beverages with no more than 1 gram of sugar per ounce, which with about 50 calories is about 70 percent less sugar than a typical soft drink contains. They said such drinks should also be free of artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharine.

"We need to retrain American tastes away from super-sweet drinks," Lilian Cheung of the Harvard School of Public Health said in a statement.

"If we can shift the present American norm back to a lower expectation of sweetness, people will adjust their palates, particularly the younger population."

More at:
http://www.reuters.com/article...dUSTRE53J6NE20090421

I agree Denise. There are already so many lower-sugar/sugar-free options and yet many people still consume the full sugar product. I don't think having a lower sugar soda is going to convert many people. As long as there are full-sugar soft drinks, sugared cereals, etc. it is going to be hard to get people to stop using them. I would certainly try a lower-sugar soda, but I would bet that most soda fans would not be satisfied and they would "wean off" the full sugar stuff.

Jill

On the other hand, we need more soft drink and cereal products like we need more rocks in our collective national head.

We already have 97 gazzillion products on the shelves… ALL containing nutrition labels. I really doubt that a new reduced sugar drink or cereal or any other product will save us from ourselves. Shoot, low sugar soda would probably have that "health halo" thing, and people'd just drink more.

There is already a low cal Gatorade. My kid buys it sometimes. I don’t know if it is low sugar or artificial sweeteners or what.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/0...ewproducts/index.htm

We already have an entire aisle of the store devoted to soft drinks with sugar… and no sugar… and probably everything inbetween not to mention a person could just make lemonade or ice tea or Koolaide or whatever and add as much or little of whatever kind of sweetener they want.

We already have an entire aisle of cereals. Shoot, right now in my house I’ve got:
Oatmeal - 0 g sugar per serving
Store Brand Cheerios - 2g/serving
Honey Bunches of Oats - 6 g/serving
Cinnamon Toast Crunch - 10 g/serving

Sort of lol at the nuttiness… that dieticians are calling for MORE options.

Cold cereals are another area where sweeteners should be reduced. Even many "adult" cereals taste over-the-top sweet to me.

BTW, Kashi Golean Crunch has twice the sugars as regular Golean.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sheltieguy,

quote:

Originally posted by Sheltieguy:
They proposed a new class of reduced-calorie beverages with no more than 1 gram of sugar per ounce

This is about the amount of sugar my parents and grandparents would put in tea and coffee. 4 g is a teaspoon of sugar. They'd use about 1.5 teaspoons (or 6 g) in a 6-8 cup of coffee or tea.

I Love this idea. Maybe they should add no corn syrup too.