Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be hacked off with manufacturers tampering with our food?

118 replies

recklessgran · 14/02/2018 23:37

Is it just me who is fed up with the changes being made to our food in the name of averting the obesity crisis?
Just opened a packet of Nice biscuits to find that they have NO sugar sprinkled on them anymore. That is the last straw!
Can't find ricicles either - apparently withdrawn due to sugar content.
I am not obese and think I am grown up and informed enough to make my own decisions about the food I eat thank you government. In fact, we eat very healthily but like the occasional treat....
Don't believe I'm the only one that feels this way - looking at you Robinsons for withdrawing normal squash - now all sugar free and full of chemical sweeteners.
Just needed a little rant as am outraged at not being allowed to decide for myself.

OP posts:
brownelephant · 15/02/2018 07:10

you could always bake Biscuit yourself and sprinkle them with sugar...

but I sort of agree, I don't like the taste of most sweeteners, they taste like 'headache' to me. it's difficult to find soft drinks without.

NewYearNewMe18 · 15/02/2018 07:11

No one rammed your arm up your back and forced you to buy their product

Ifailed · 15/02/2018 07:14

NewYearNewMe18, quite it's not our food, its theirs, until you choose to buy it. If you don't like the changes, don't buy it, it's not like there's no choice in a supermarket!

carnassials · 15/02/2018 07:16

Completely agree with you, chemical sweeteners are awful and I can tell the difference, despite manufacturers telling me I shouldn't (Lucozade!)

liltingleaf · 15/02/2018 07:21

Conversely, I am pretty annoyed manufacturers add so much sugar to products. It is not needed. The NHS recommends we eat no more than 30g a day. Which is about 6 teaspoon fulls. Sounds like a lot until you realise a fruit yoghurt already has 20g in, non sweet fortified cereal over 4g and half a tin of baked beans 10g.

We do not need food sweetened already. It would be better to have totally unsweetened food and add a small amount of sugar or syrup (5g per teaspoon) then at least you can control the amount that goes in.

It is not just obesity than too much sugar in our diet risks. Diabetes and serious tooth decay are other very serious health risks.

dramalamma · 15/02/2018 07:23

To be fair they’re under a lot of government pressure and the government are listening to the wrong people and settling the wrong guidance if you ask me - sugar swapped for artificial sweeteners should never be acceptable. Same with fat - they’ve got that totally wrong but they’re still banging the low fat drum. Drives me mad too.

liltingleaf · 15/02/2018 07:24

They don't need to swap sugar for artificial sweeteners. Just don't add either. For sweet foods use sugar just don't overload with sugar.

SleepingInYourFlowerbed · 15/02/2018 07:31

Biscuits are biscuits. Literally no point in them being low sugar or low fat.

pinkpopcorn · 15/02/2018 07:33

They have to reduced sugar in food products otherwise they will be fined. Also you can’t swap sugar for sweeteners in baked goods so there’s a lot of redormukfion in baked goods to reduced the sugar content in baked goods without altering the texture and basic properties of the products. So removing sugar of the top of the biscuits sounds like an easy and less altering way to alter the biscuit sugar content.

VandelayIndustries · 15/02/2018 07:33

Artificial sweeteners are cheaper than sugar. That's why companies are using them in my opinion. Not because of health reasons.

I was in a major branch of Boots last week and there wasn't one liquid paracetamol on sale that had sugar in. And it's the same with cordial. None in my local (Massive) Asda. Have to get it from Ocado.

Cherrycokewinning · 15/02/2018 07:34

There seems to be a thread like this every few months, posters outraged that manufacturers and bowing to years of public pressure and making their food slightly healthier. Not long before the conspiracy theories about artificial sweeteners start.

Personally I don’t see the problem. Looking back some of the food we ate that has since been modified was grim

JellySlice · 15/02/2018 07:41

Biscuits are biscuits. Literally no point in them being low sugar or low fat.

Quite.

You have the choice not to eat them. But I'd much rather eat a small, occasional amount of something unhealthy but real, than a large amount of something faked and mucked about. Nice biscuits aren't Nice biscuits without the sugar crust. Syrup isn't syrup if sugar is replaced by artificial sweeteners and texturisers. Wine isn't wine without alcohol. And so on.

Olga81 · 15/02/2018 07:44

Waitrose and M&S still sell hi juice with no sweeteners.

Sweeteners have a laxative effect on me so the wish to avoid them has nothing to do with conspiracy theories.

BeyondThePage · 15/02/2018 07:48

Nice biscuits are a treat - a Saturday afternoon sit with a cup of tea and Nice to dunk... there's no point in a treat if it is not a treat any more just because other people eat too many of them every day they need to be made healthy.

Jellycatspyjamas · 15/02/2018 07:49

Surely individuals have the right to choose. I don't like artificial sweeteners, I don't like the aftertaste they leave and worry about the chemicalisation (not a real word) of food. I fine with making my own cakes and biscuits etc however I'd like a non-sweetener option for cordials, or baked beans, or breakfast cereal. Not because I eat a lot of them but when I do I don't want a chemical aftertaste.

In exactly the same way I don't use low fat, chemical alternatives for butter.

SoftSheen · 15/02/2018 07:53

I agree- better to remove the sugar from all the foods which shouldn't have it in the first place (pasta sauce etc). Everyone knows that biscuits and cakes are sugary and should be eaten in moderation.

Switch to making your own! Won't be healthier in terms of sugar/fat content but will taste far nicer!

Shampaincharly · 15/02/2018 08:05

Artificial sweeteners can make you obese. They act on your body cells.
Perhaps they would be better reducing the sugar in items in increments instead of replacement with sweetener. I would rather have the sugar on its own.

whiskyowl · 15/02/2018 08:06

YABU. The agreement with manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt in products has saved lives and therefore cost to the NHS:

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/4/e004549

Sugar is the same. We need a similar arrangement with manufacturers to reduce the use of it. We came close to getting one a few years ago, but the sugar lobby is very powerful and got to ministers.

Shampaincharly · 15/02/2018 08:07

BTW , I am not part of a conspiracy.

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou · 15/02/2018 08:13

Artificial sweeteners make me ill. I’ve been told by my doctor that I should avoid them. I never purposely drank anything with them in anyway but once I made the mistake of drinking diet lemonade all night at a party (driving and I didn’t realise that I was being given diet every time I asked for a lemonade) and I was so badly effected the next day I ended up in hospital being rehydrated.

You won’t find artificial sweeteners in this house..... you won’t find fat people or bad teeth either though....

Penfold007 · 15/02/2018 08:20

it's not like there's no choice in supermarkets
Actually I think it is rapidly becoming no choice in supermarkets (except buy or don't buy). For me artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes taste awful and give me headaches and upset tummy.
There are lots of products I simply no longer buy due to no sugar added. Cutting back on sweetness levels and reeducating our palates would be better.

Weezol · 15/02/2018 08:29

My diet is already restricted after surgeries for Crohn's.

Artificial sweeteners are catastrophic for me, I end up having iv rehydration in hospital. Additionally I find them too sweet and they seem to be in so much stuff now.

I'm managing to avoid them - it's irksome having yet another thing to check for, but I understand why manufacturers are doing it and as I tend to cook from scratch it's not too bad.

I just think 'well, that's another corporation not getting my money then'.

The one time it really did fuck me off was when Lemsip and generic dupes switched to them a few years ago without warning or overt 'no added sugar' labelling, sweeteners were buried in the tiny ingredients list. That was fun.

I rang the IBD team at the hospital to tell them when I realised and the nurse I spoke to said there had been a spike in calls/emergency clinic requests and had that 'oh bugger, that'll be it then' moment when she realised pretty much all of the callers had heavy colds.

Bumbumtaloo · 15/02/2018 08:36

Are you sure that they were supposed to not have sugar on them? I had the same recently with farm house fruit cake having no brown sugar on top and so I tweeted about it, apparently it was an error and sugar should have been there. I was sent a £5 voucher as an apology yay free cake

NotAnotherJaffaCake · 15/02/2018 08:39

Artificial sweeteners are amongst some of the most studied compounds chemistry has ever made and they are shown to be overwhelmingly safe - I see the usual rubbish is already being spouted about them. The salt action has made a big difference, and as another poster has said, sugar will go the same way. We have a massive obesity crisis in this country and this is the first step to reducing it.

That said, I do think sweetener taste different to sugar, but if it means eating less cakes / biscuits because I don’t like them as much, that’s probably a good thing!

Fluffyears · 15/02/2018 08:39

I loved licizade and now it’s ruined, the bastards are also tampering with irn bru. I’m a grown up if I want to consume something it’s up to me to make the health decision.