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Have to comment since I've been listening to Dr. Lustig lately (https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM?si=6mS-3SKI7R4zOdYT).

The site shows that 1 can of Coca-Cola has fewer calories and less carbs than a medium apple: 90 vs 122 calories, 25 vs 30 gram of carbs. There is no other information, e.g no fiber content or added sugars section. Would this lead someone to believe, against common sense, that Coke is equivalent or even a healthier choice?

Edit: For those interested, here is a link to a similar system that contains more information (albeit not as polished): https://perfact.co:8443/Nova/

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Adding "fiber" in the results (and changing "carbs" to "net carbs") would help.

I never understood the motive of highlighting "added sugar" though. Who cares if it's considered "added" or not? I recently was browsing the cranberry juice section at a grocery store, and without going into detail, it was obvious that some brands are gaming the definition of "added". Also, many natural sugar sources have unhealthy levels of sugar. Perhaps a metric like sugar density or caloric density would be more useful.

It’s a successful propaganda campaign. There are many people that wrongly believe that “natural sugars” are somehow better/more nutritious. (My mother is one, and eats way too much fruit and fruit juice because “it’s natural!”)

natural sugars come with free vitamins and minerals.

but sure, you can have too much natural sugars.

Added sugar doesn't have as many nutrients, and is absorbed by the body much more quickly.

this is not true, sugar is sugar* -- what matters is how it is consumed, not how it is added. if sugar is consumed with a lot of fibers then it will be absorbed slower by your intenstines. the same fruit consumed as juice or whole fruit impacts how the sugar is absorbed.

[1] sugar is actually multiple sugars, and different sugars (glucose vs fructose vs sucrose) - https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/sucrose-glucose-fructos...

But, in general, processed sugar has the effects I mentioned, because it is added.

> Added sugar doesn't have as many nutrients

Most overweight people (the audience of a calorie counting app) don't need more nutrients, they need less calories. Besides, fruit is a really poor source of vitamins/minerals in general, so this is a weak ground to stand on.

> [added sugar is] absorbed by the body much more quickly.

You're using circular logic.

Yep. Any site do this instantly lost credibility to me. Total carbs is total carbs. If they can't do basic cico it's misleading

There’s a lot of nutrition label gaming going on these days. It’s my understanding that the nutrition label is mostly enforced on the honor system so, probably easy to game.

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