Total sugar content of pre-packaged beverages available in Saudi Arabia

Beverages are a major source of sugar; therefore, efforts to reduce sugar consumption focus on limiting sugary drinks. This is a descriptive observational analysis study of pre-packaged beverages. The analysis covered 12 beverage categories and 28 types of commonly available sugars in beverages. The beverages' median total sugar was determined and assessed based on the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended upper limit of sugar intake and the multiple traffic light labeling (MTL) criteria. Different analyses were performed including frequencies and median to determine the categories with high sugar content and non-parametric tests to compare the median of the total sugar among categories. The median total sugar content of the 1400 analyzed beverages was 11 g 100 mL-1; fruit juices and soft drinks had the highest median of total sugar (12 – 11 g 100 mL-1). The top sugar terms found are White sugar, Sucrose, High-fructose corn syrup, and Glucose syrup. The median total sugar in our study amounts to 20 % of the WHO upper limit recommendation, and 46.22 % of the beverages received a ‘red’ label for sugar content per 100 mL based on the MTL criteria. Sugar content in the pre-packaged beverages is high compared to the recommended daily limit of sugar. • 100 mL of sweetened beverages uses 20 % of a person daily sugar limit. • Top sugars in used in beverages are white sugar and sucrose. • Soft drinks and fruit juices are the least healthy beverage choices.