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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

According to the US FDA's labelling requirements, if something contains less than 0.5g of sugar per serving, it can be labelled "sugar free".

https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...

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Serving size is an often arbitrary and gameable number. This is a case where the fda need to improve their definitions. Eg. zeroing-out amounts could take serving size into account.

Yes, the games played with serving sizes can be ridiculous.

But, at least in this case, if sugars are present in a food, but at less than half a gram per serving, the label can claim the food to be sugar free, but does still have to contain a disclaimer saying that sugar is present.

Welcome to bureaucracy.

But why? This is like worrying about pennies on a thousand dollar price.

A tic-tac is zero sugar in the context of a person's normal daily intake.

Except for those who took (and paid attention in) a chemistry class, most people are woefully ignorant of precision and significant figures.

Not if you have diabetes or if you're into a keto/low carb diet

But yes in the context of 70% of people being overweitgh/obese I guess it doesn't matter, the bar is low so we can lower it ever further

Nobody is overweight due to eating too many tic-tacs.

Ehh, many people are probably eating several boxes a day of tick tacks which are ~100 calories each. I used to pop them like the candy they are, and that adds up fast.

So I wouldn’t be surprised if a few thousand people are overweight due to Tick Tacks not actually being 0g of sugar.

In addition to Retric's point, many (most?) people are overweight due to symphony of small poor health choices. A box of tic tacs here, a candy bar there, a soda and a beer at night, driving instead of walking: each of those might add ~100 net calories a day, but together they add ~500 a day, which absolutely can cause weight gain.

Make a serving of potatoe chips 2gr and call it "0 calorie"

That's exactly the same thing, and it's as dumb as it sounds

No need to muck about with limits based on serving size. Just mandate a consistent portion size for labeling and allow manufacturers to also label with an additional serving size of their choosing. So everything, tic-tacs included, would be labeled with nutrition facts for say 3 oz (or even a flat 100g to be consistent with EU), and then tic-tacs could also include labeling for per piece.

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