Hacker News Reader

Comment by tjr | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

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 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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com