What 'no added sugar' should legally have to mean

'No added sugar' is one of the few health claims on Indian packaging that has a real definition behind it — and it still tells you far less than most shoppers assume.

What the phrase actually covers

Broadly, it means no sugars were added as an ingredient during manufacture. It does not mean the product is low in sugar. Sugars that arrive inside another ingredient — fruit, fruit juice concentrate, date paste, malt — are still sugars once they're in you, and the claim can survive all of them.

This is why a granola sweetened to dessert levels with apple juice concentrate can legally carry the same three words as something genuinely restrained.

The five things to look for instead

• The 'of which sugars' line on the nutrition panel. This counts everything, added or not.
• Fruit juice concentrate high in the ingredient list — a common way to sweeten while keeping the claim.
• Anything ending in -ose, plus maltodextrin, which behaves like sugar without being called it.
• Sweeteners like sucralose or maltitol, which sidestep sugar entirely but are worth knowing about.
• Serving size. A low per-serving number on a serving nobody actually eats is the oldest trick on the shelf.

A claim you can't check is marketing. A number you can check is information.

Where ours comes from

Sweetness in our packs comes from date powder — 11.7% in Mocha Rush, 11.83% in Thai Mango Coconut — plus the dried fruit that carries the flavour: cranberries in one, mango in the other. Nothing sweet is added on top of that.

Dates are sugar. That's the point of them. What we can tell you is exactly how much is in there and where it came from, which is a different promise from 'guilt-free' and a more useful one.

The test we'd apply to anything

Turn the pack around. If the ingredient list names every component with a percentage, you can work out the answer yourself. If it doesn't, the claim on the front is doing work the back won't support.