Added sugar in American diet may go the way of trans fat

New York

SUGAR is everywhere in the American diet, and now the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will begin highlighting just how much of the sweet stuff is added to what we eat.

Beginning in July 2018, the "Nutrition Facts" labels on packaged foods will list added sugars separately from total sugars. The updated labels will also assign a per cent daily value to added sugars, revealing to consumers that, for example, the 65 grammes of added sugar in a 20-ounce (590 ml) bottle of Coca-Cola constitutes 130 per cent of the daily recommended amount.

The policy change, announced earlier last month, marks an undeniably big win for public-health advocates. But how much will the new sugar-added labels change what's produced by big food companies and what Americans eat? Looking back …