Tic Tacs claim to have 0 sugar but are almost entirely sugar | Hacker News Reader

Tic Tacs claim to have 0 sugar but are almost entirely sugar

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85 pointssmohnot84 comments

Always found the "X per serving" stupid, servings almost never match the actual consumption. Don't know if it's a Europe law or per-state, but in Italy everything has to list nutritional info per 100g(or ml if it's liquid), and tic-tacs correctly show their average of 2 calories per candy[1]. It also is a wakeup call to how heavy snacks are, a can of Pringles is almost 900 calories even though they'd prefer you use their serving size of 30g (about 13 chips)

1. https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/400/840/039...

> servings almost never match the actual consumption

My favorite serving size: 1/3 of a muffin.

i bought some chips somewhat recently and the serving size was listed as "6 chips".

I recently ran across some instructions that said to measure 1/3 of an inch... I was beside myself.

2/3 of a pickle spear. Any more and it can't round to 0.

The US has started implementing an even simpler system. Any foods that are packaged in a way that could plausibly be consumed in a single serving must list the nutrition facts for the whole container.

e.g. https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/wp-content/upl...

I think this should be expanded to larger packaging sizes than it currently is. I think that currently only the shorter Pringles cans are affected by this new regulation in the US.

Listing the ingredients per 100g is better, because you can compare different products.

It is the law in Europe (I think) and it's the only sensible solution.

Per 100g doesn't make it easy to compare a bag of chips to a can of soda.

Unless you carry around a food scale to measure out all your snacks, I fail to understand why 100g^-1 is useful.

I would however be interested in a pie chart that displays the calories from different macros. Then tic tac would be 100% sugar and you could compare to soda, also 100% sugar, or chips, which are maybe 65% fat and 5% protein and 30% carbs.

I don't mean to be snarky, but there's always a weight listed on stuff, I think that removes the requirement for carrying a food scale?

Sure, but now we're back to the current US system, where you have to multiply or divide by the amount in the container (either servings per container, or grams per container) to make sense of the measurement.

Standardizing to 100g doesn't actually make it easier to compare foods, because I don't know how 100g of popcorn compares to 100g of chocolate or 100g of soup. It just doesn't mean anything to me.

Just list the amount in the container.

From my experience, it does make it easier if you need to compare similar foods.

For example, I want to buy a yogurt with highest amount of protein. Serving sizes may vary between 150 and to 500gr. With standardized labels it is very easy task.

In my country we have calories listed for both 100g/container and nutrients are always listed for 100g and sometimes for full contaiber. I almost always use 100g part.

In the US, serving sizes are generally standardized per type of food, so two quart containers of yogurt will always have the same serving size in the nutrition facts.

There is quite a bit of water in soda. While there is a lot of sugar, it is about 10% which is a bit less than 100. Specifying per 100g (or some other size) makes it quite easy to compare two different products. Of course you also have to take into consideration how much of the product you will consume

The percentage being expressed is (calories from X)/(total calories). For soda and sugar, that comes to 1.

The biggest issue I see with per-100g is it can allow trans fats to fly under the radar by including slightly less than 0.5g per 100g. If the true portion size is 300g then it’s much harder to hide trans fats

Per 100g helps people compare similar products. But is that the problem that needs solving? I don't really think so. The issue is that people binge an entire package of food and don't realize how many calories they're actually consuming. These people are not helped by being persuaded to binge a bag of chips with 5% fewer calories.

I've been on a diet and I have a spreadsheet where I transform everything to 100g calories

100g of popcorn is not the same as 100g of chips.

Fortunately, here in the Netherlands (and most parts of Europe I suspect), ingredients are specified as amounts per 100g rather than some arbitrary serving size. This makes it very easy to compare products, for instance to see which one has the lowest percentage of sugars. In the US I had a much harder time comparing cereals for sugar content, as every one would have a different serving size.

Per 100g or 100ml is mandatory, but it is allowed to show per serving (for instance a hand of M&Ms).

> for instance a hand of M&Ms

An excellent example of "serving" stupidity. How big a hand? Child's hand? Adult's hand? Bodybuilder's? Woman? Man? Full? Kind of full?

I have absolutely no idea what a "serving of cheese" constitutes.

True, but it is mentioned what a serving is. For instance: "Portion (40g)"

Sure, but the serving size can vary, even between different package sizes of the exact same product, and certainly between different manufacturers.

Overall, humans are dumb and can't (or won't) do math in their heads. Consider the stupid thing with the failed 1/3 lb burger positioned in the market against the 1/4 lb burger ( https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fr... ).

If one product says "5g fat / serving [serving size: 40g]" and another says "4g fat / serving [serving size: 30g]", many many people will think that the second one has lower fat content.

If these were normalized to 100g, it would be clear that the first has 5/40*100 = 12.5g of fat whereas the second has 4/30*100 = 13.3g of fat.

Right, not a chance with all those bodybuilders training for hand hypertrophy.

A hand is a really bad to measure things, it's good no other arbitrarily sized body parts are used for exact measurements in the US.

I'm a resident of Germany and I visited the US this year. I'm quite conscious of my 5 year old's sugar intake so I almost obsessively look at the labels looking for the percentage of sugar a product contains at grocery stores.

Reading the labels in the US was __extremely aggravating__ due to the serving size bullshit and it gave me a headache after calculating the percentage of sugar in the products after like the 10th product. Here in Germany, the label states the number of grams of sugar for every 100 grams of product, so you don't even have to calculate the percentage. Comparing products in the grocery store aisles is really easy in Germany.

> the label states the number of grams of sugar for every 100 grams of product

Isn't it required in the whole EU?

Do they really say "sugar free" on the label? I think the claim is that one serving (one tic-tac) has 0g of sugar, which, assuming rounding to the nearest whole number, is probably true.

Unfortunately, that might lead someone to say, well, there are 60 tic-tacs in a box, and 60 * 0 is still 0, so I can eat all 60 for 0g of sugar, which of course is not true.

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...

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.

No, they don't. His photo doesn't support his silly claim at all. He highlights that the first ingredient is sugar, and that it says zero grams, but doesn't note the asterisk, which says "less than 0.5g". The tic tacs labeled "sugar free" use artificial sweetener.

I don't think any reasonable person would read those three pieces of information and assume that regular tic tacs are sugar free.

Still seems like a dark pattern that tic-tacs are manufactured to be 0.49g, just under the 0.5g limit that allows them to round down to zero on the label.

A reasonable person would not always notice the triangle and understand what it means, and even then it's obscurantism. Why bother defending what is obviously purposefully misleading? Whether this is enabled by FDA rules doesn't change that.

>The tic tacs labeled "sugar free" use artificial sweetener.

I've sort of trained myself to be careful at this point, but this is an annoyance of mine especially with clear sparkling water. I'm fine with and generally like seltzers without sweeteners added. I hate sparkling water with some artificial sweetener and the difference isn't always obvious from the big print on the label.

Look for “no sweeteners” on the label and/or check the ingredients list.

Hence "big print." You need to look carefully which I do unless it's a brand I know that only sells unsweetened seltzers.

We should add significant figures to the high school curriculum.

Do you really think that in the country where the third-pounder lost to the quarter-pounder because people thought it was smaller that they read the asterisk text there?

Do you think that country reads the nutrition label saying 0g of sugar either?

It's the third-pounder you're thinking of. And it's not really surprising that people aren't really mentally engaged when ordering at a fast food restaurant. McDonalds is the kind of place where people order by looking at numbered pictures.

Yep, autocorrect error, fixed.

Thanks

I imagine the critique is based on the nutrition label alone; I'm not aware of and cannot find any labeling where the brand suggests the product is "sugar-free" outside the nutrition label.

Regardless, it is indeed a deceptive practice that I believe should not be allowed, along with the "sugar-free!" labels when they have maltodextrin or other "basically-sugar" ingredients.

No it does not.

And they do list the calories to two digits (which are <5g), list sugar as the primary ingredient, and have a footnote saying that the sugar is < 0.5g.

The disadvantage of standardized labelling is that there will be edge cases, such as when the serving size is under half a gram. Some other countries standardize on 100g for size, but for tic-tacs that would be more than 3 typical containers worth. Listing all three (portion, container and 100g size) would require a fold-out label to fit, which would negatively impact a product kept in purses and pockets.

Could you sell a bag of sugar, specifying a serving size of 0.49g, as being sugar free?

I think there are standards around serving sizes, even more so for commodities like that but I don’t know for sure and would be curious to learn more if anyone else feels like chiming in!

I mean, they basically are, so yes? I guess there might be some part of the process where you have to explain your serving size and that might be the hard part

Definitely going to reference this fact next time I run into a bug due to an accumulated round off error.

I'll wait to get out the pitchfork til they actually say "sugar-free" on the side.

Why do they bother listing amounts, in grams, of the constituents of a 0.49g serving, and round any amount less than 0.5g down to 0? Nothing can be non zero in that case!

Isn’t that the entire point?

They should apply it to the serving too. For a 0g serving is 0g sugar.

They can round any number under 5 kilocalories to 0, and a gram of sugar has 4 kcal. Same thing with most sweetener packets, which use sugar as a filler or else there would be less then a single grain of powder per pack. Ironically, there is another fairly common filler: erythritol, which has less calories then sugar, and doesn't contribute to blood sugar, but because of how it's produced it can't be labeled natural.

This is an ancient factoid but people love to bring it around again.

The problem is that USA doesn't mandate nutrition facts per container, and allows 0.49g "serving sizes".

In Tic Tac's defense, the UI design (and adveristing) for the famous "one and a half calorie breath mint" (now 1.9cal) suggests that you should be having only 1 or 2 at a time of these teeny tiny mints.

But they know that their customers can't control themselves.

Same trick used in these 0 calories flavored waters.

It would be nice if manufacturers always had to provide a "whole package" calorie count on the label.

The FDA has started requiring this for some products:

> New Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules specify that the label on any food package that contains between two and three servings and that could be eaten in one sitting must provide nutrition information both for a single serving and for eating the entire contents.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-food-labels-now-tell-you-t...

On the one hand it does have an asterisk and says <0.5g at the end of the label.

On the other hand changing the serving size to ~1g would clear this up so there is a lot of rules lawyering going on here.

Especially since none of their consumers eats 1 of these things in a serving...

They're breath mints, not candy.

Is 1 at a time not enough? Is it 2 or 3?

> They're breath mints, not candy.

Based on what? I think they're definitely candy.

Common sense? Or if you need proof that it's not just me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic_Tac

"Product type: Breath mints"

Actual candies tend to be larger, like peppermints, or else you eat a bunch at once, like Nerds. Tic Tacs literally come in a tiny sturdy dispenser box because they're breath mints designed to keep with you for days/weeks. Not a cardboard box to consume in one or two sittings.

"Hard mints are hard candies or boiled sweets flavored with mint. Examples of hard mints include starlight mints, also known as pinwheel mints, white, circular, with red or green rays emitting from the middle; candy canes; humbugs; and brand name mints such as Altoids and Ice Breakers."

It is 2 or 3 from my experience since the tiny size means they don't have enough of an impact if you have only one.

Also they sell non-mint ones...

My point is a serving size of 2 would avoid this skullduggery and be representative of how much people eat anyway.

Just be honest and say there is 1g of sugar in 1g of tic tacs.

Same idea: 0 calories does not mean 0 calories https://youtu.be/EN6COaYLS_A

The federal agencies governing food labeling are very effective. I'm okay with companies employing people to figure out how to live just barely inside the bounds of legal labeling. To me, that's just evidence that the companies couldn't change the regulations through lobbying, couldn't skirt the regulations by bribing inspectors, and couldn't just ignore them and budget for some annual fines.

TIL the FDA uses metric system.

Aren't all nutritional labels in the US in metric?

Wait really? You buy quantities in imperial but the nutritional labels are in metric? Good luck with that!

Why would I need to be lucky? When would I care how many ounces of protein are in my sandwich?

Sounds overly complicated? Especially if one unit makes sense to you but the other one doesn’t because you never use it in daily life?

serving size is usually in imperial

All packaged foods in the US are required by law to be dual labelled in metric and customary units since 1994. The package size, serving size, and nutrition facts are all labelled in metric.

It is really a myth to say that the US "doesn't use metric". (and it's also a myth to say that they use imperial units, US customary units diverge in many cases from imperial units) The US widely uses a mix of both customary and metric units.

Don't worry, our labels say calories, but are really kilocalories.

The serving sizes are often in imperial (although the closest label shows serving size 1 can). The quantities of fat, sodium, sugar, protein are all grams or milligrams for sodium. But ounces and grams for those things are equally unrelatable for me. I don't consider the mass of these items, I just know them as a quantity on a label. If I were cooking and adding sugar or salt, it would be by volume, not mass.

wait until they find out about trans fats!

Wait till you learn about lead free brass

What about it?

"Lead free" plumbing can and has been permitted to contain lead by regulation. Although the permissible levels are chosen in such a way that it mitigates concerns about it leaching into water systems.

related fun fact: splenda has more calories than sugar. it can say 0 calories because it has less than 5 per serving (packet)

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