It’s not a secret that many of our favourite drinks from popular coffee chains are packed full of excessive sugar, calories, and unhealthy fats. It seems that every so often, a new article pops up to remind us of the fact. But what about all of the snack foods displayed next to the till and inside the cake shelves?
A study published in April 2021 sets out to investigate the nutritional content of snacks sold in both coffee shops and supermarkets and was able to uncover some shocking food-facts. While Public Health England suggests that adults shouldn’t consume snacks above 200 calories each, 73% of the snack products across seven major UK coffee shops were found to exceed this recommended limit.
Additionally, the NHS puts the daily sugar cap for adults at 30g a day, which is equal to 7.5 cubes worth. 49% of the coffee shop snacks recorded in the study reported high levels of sugar (which would be represented as ‘red’ on the traffic light food labelling system), and an additional 34% of snack products were found to have above ideal, or ‘amber’ levels of sugar in them.
Snack products in this study were identified as single-serving portions for foods which only required a short amount of time to consume and are able to be eaten on-the-go without any cooking or preparation. For this reason, and also to minimise ambiguity as to what constitutes a ‘snack’, savoury products not sold in the snack section such as toasties and salads were excluded from the count. Similarly, packaged drinks were excluded. Savoury items such as crisps, and nuts were still considered as snacks.
The data in question was collected from publicly available data from 2019, hence, I decided to look into some of the current offerings in a few of the major chains currently operating in the UK to gauge how some of the nations most popular treats line up against PHE and NHS recommendations. Additionally, I wanted to compare how product expectations may stack up against their reality, in terms of caloric, sugar and fat content.
Examples of hidden sugar and fat content
For example, many people trying to be food conscious may veer away from something like a chocolate muffin, instead opting for a supposedly lighter option, like banana bread or carrot cake. Unfortunately, having a fruit or vegetable in the name doesn’t necessarily mean healthier.
Let’s take Caffe Nero as our first example and compare their Belgian Chocolate Cake with their Carrot Cake. While both slices exceed the recommended calorie count for a single snack portion by more than double (420 and 541 calories, respectively), the sugar content is the most shocking. Either of these choices would take you over your daily sugar recommendation in a single slice, with the chocolate cake exceeding the 30g guide by 6.3g, and the carrot cake by a whopping 14.7g!
While on the topic of carrot cakes, Nero isn’t the only offender. Costa Coffee serves a similarly calorific (576kcal) Carrot & Walnut cake, with a staggering 45g of sugar, which should be enough to be spread across a day and a half instead of in a single snack.
Another surprise entry in the competition for having the most sugar per individual serving comes from Greggs, in the form of their Belgian Bun. While the item comes in at less than 400 calories, and only 4g of fat (compared to anywhere from about 15 – 25g for the majority of other sweet snack foods examined in my own research), it somehow packs an eye-opening 47g of sugar.
While it may be easy to assume that Greggs is one of the least health-conscious when it comes to high street snacking, it doesn’t seem to fare all too different from Nero, Starbucks, and Costa in a like-for-like comparison of each of the chains’ chocolate muffins. Starbucks clocks up the highest calorie count at 468 per Triple Chocolate Muffin (only 20 more than Nero, which is the least calorie-dense), but Greggs has the greatest sugar content at 36g, which is 4-6g higher than its competitors. It does, however, have the least amount of fat, at 21g compared to 24-25g for the other 3 chains.
A further misconception is that the presence of oats or dried fruits make for a more health-conscious option, when this isn’t necessarily the case at all. Starbucks showcases many examples of this, including its Luxury Fruit Toast, which packs 39g of sugar per serving, and over 450 calories. While something like the Oat & Raisin cookie may seem like a healthier alternative to other treats, it actually contains 30g of sugar, which is the same as the Raspberry White Chocolate Blondie, which I’m sure many assume to have a lot more sugar.
What does this mean for the consumer?
There are countless more examples and comparisons to be made between the hundreds of snack products which are stocked on the shelves of coffee chains across the country, however, what do all these numbers actually mean for the average consumer? Should they even mean anything to us, or should we be able to enjoy the occasional treat without obsessing over the nutritional label?
I think it all comes down to both perspective and moderation. While PHE and the NHS can make dietary recommendations, at the end of the day, they are exactly just that – recommendations. No two bodies are exactly alike, which means the tolerance for different dietary practices and nutritional content will inevitably vary from person to person.
That’s not to say we can throw all caution to the wind, these recommendations by public health bodies are based on science relating to the average human body, and the general limits it has as a species. For the average person who doesn’t follow any particular diet (such as keto, veganism, intermittent fasting, or anything else which cuts out or restricts any food group), these guides are generally a good place to begin to work out the optimal food choices for your body.
The study above concluded that the high calorie, sugar, and fat content of individually portioned snacks could be contributing to the expanding waistbands across the nation. While it recognised snacking as an inherent result of our on-the-move lifestyle, it addressed the need for a change in policy, where snacks that are less calorically dense per portion should also come with a financial incentive to choose them over unhealthier choices.
While we wait for these policies to come to fruition though, maybe, take an occasional closer look at the nutrition label of your favourite treats. Better yet, maybe it’s time to go back to the good old fashioned packed lunch.
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