{"id":816445,"date":"2025-03-12T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=816445"},"modified":"2025-03-13T10:00:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T08:00:02","slug":"big-change-for-drinks-with-lots-of-sugar-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/816445\/big-change-for-drinks-with-lots-of-sugar-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Big change for drinks with lots of sugar in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Over half of South African beverages will require warning labels for high levels of sugar and artificial sweeteners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was revealed in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/16070658.2025.2453768?src=#d1e174\">research article<\/a> by Wantonda Mukhovha, Naledi Sibiya, Thanujj Kisten, Molatela Mamabolo, and Siphiwe Dlamini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Siphiwe Dlamini from the University of the Witwatersrand&#8217;s Department of Physiology explained the expected changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said the Department of Health implemented several interventions to address the rise in obesity and diabetes in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the interventions is amending the regulations around advertising food products, including a proposal regarding warning labels for sugary drinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers launched a study to determine the proportion of commercially available beverages that may require warning labels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These warning labels relate to high sugar content and the presence of artificial sweeteners in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This study analysed 603 non-alcoholic beverages from the top South African supermarkets, including juices, soft drinks, and energy drinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers used the ingredient lists and nutritional information in 100 ml of these beverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They then identified the beverages which require warning labels for high sugar content and artificial sweeteners based on the proposed labelling regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study revealed that more than half of South African beverages are expected to require warning labels due to high sugar content or artificial sweeteners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>21.4% of beverages required a warning label for high sugar content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>49.8% of beverages required a warning label for artificial sweeteners.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>58.7% of beverages required a warning label for at least one of these criteria.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Juices sold in South Africa were least likely to need warning labels for high sugar or artificial sweeteners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is despite them having the highest energy (160 kJ\/100 ml), glycaemic carbohydrates (9%) and sugar content (8.4%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe proposed regulations are likely to favour juices, which, despite their high sugar content, are less likely to require warning labels because the sugar is naturally occurring,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers said the South African government should include beverages with high natural sugar levels, like juices, in warning label criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis would ensure that consumers are adequately informed about the sugar content in all types of beverages,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over half of South African beverages will require warning labels for high levels of sugar and artificial sweeteners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":816451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[21996,21994,21992,21995,10859,21993,15290,21991],"class_list":["post-816445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-artificial-sweeteners","tag-molatela-mamabolo","tag-naledi-sibiya","tag-siphiwe-dlamini","tag-sugar","tag-thanujj-kisten","tag-university-of-the-witwatersrand","tag-wantonda-mukhovha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816445"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":816452,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816445\/revisions\/816452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}