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Comment by helsinkiandrew | Hacker News Reader

TLDR: Starbucks are using the term "Sugar-Free" when they mean “no added sugar” although there's sugar naturally in the ingredients.

I'm not sure how anyone can argue that isn't clearly breaking FDA guidance of containing less than 0.5g of sugar:

https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...

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It seems to go further. They must be intentionally adding ingredients that have a high sugar content, else they would never get to the 21g of sugar in a 21oz drink, as mentioned by the article.

The demographic that seeks caffeine and those responding to sugar is not exactly the same, but there sure is lots of overlap.

Either way wouldn't the greatest satisfaction of a habit-forming desire come from those who are having a little metabolic shortage at the time for one reason or another?

Starbucks has always been completely dependent on habit-forming behavior in response to significantly powerful substances.

That's what dependency can do.

If it's mostly milk (about 5% sugar in the form of lactose), it's up there. Their "protein milk" might well be even more concentrated. That might even be their hack to smuggle sugar into a 'no sugar added' drink.

> else they would never get to the 21g of sugar in a 21oz drink, as mentioned by the article.

My carton of regular milk says 11g or sugar per 240ml. So seems like simple milk could get there.

This is basically standard practice worldwide for most "sugar free" products. Most common sources are dates, apple juice concentrate, honey in my experience.

Products actually using erythritol, mannitol, or xylitol instead are a rarity.

Where is that the case? In eu at least that is commonly called like "contains naturally occuring sugars" and "no added sugar". "Sugar free" is more specific and should contain <0.5g sugars/100g or ml.

"Sugar free" usually implies that it uses sweeteners instead of sugar.

These are nutrition claims and they are regulated [0]

https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/labelling-and-nutritio...

At least in several countries in Europe, sugar free is when there is less than 0.5% of sugar and when there is no sugar added it's "ni sugar added"

Thankfully, they cracked down on "no sugar added" products sweetened with evaporated cane juice.

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