How much sugar is in that drink?

Rose Carr investigates the amount of sugar found in shop-bought drinks.

1 teaspoon sugar = around 4g

To do a quick approximation of how many teaspoons of sugar is in your food or drink, divide the amount of sugars in grams by four.

In perspective

50g bar Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate
28.1g sugar = 6 3/4 teaspoons sugar

*NOTE: Some or all of the sugar in milk and juice drinks comes from natural sugars.

Pumped Mandarin Flavoured Spring Water
17g per 750ml bottle = 4 teaspoons sugar:

Raro Sunshine Coast Orange
19g per 250ml glass = 4 1/2 teaspoons sugar

V Guarana Energy Drink
26.5g per 250ml can = 6 1/4 teaspoons sugar

*Tatua Farms UHT-flavoured Milk – Mocha
29.5g per 250ml pack = 7 teaspoons sugar

Schweppes Indian Tonic Water
29g per 330ml bottle = 7 teaspoons sugar

Dilmah Ice Tea Lemon Flavour
30.8g per 500ml bottle = 7 1/4 teaspoons sugar

Coca-Cola
38g per 355ml can = 9 teaspoons sugar

Bundaberg Ginger Beer
40.5g per 375ml bottle = 9 1/2 teaspoons sugar

Mizone Isopower
46g per 750ml bottle = 11 teaspoons sugar

*Charlie’s Honest Juice Orange
47g per 500ml bottle = 11 teaspoons sugar

Any product examples given here were correct at time of publication. However, remember to check the ingredients and nutrition information every so often, as these can change over time.

Please note: In this article we’ve used 4g for 1 teaspoon of sugar. Since the 11th edition of New Zealand Food Composition Tables, sugar has been listed as 4.9g per teaspoon. So you’ll notice in more recent articles we round to 5g per teaspoon of sugar.

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