Exactly How Much Sugar Is in That Snack Bar?

Americans eat a lot of sugar, and a lot more of it than they used to. Between 1977 and 2010, the amount of calories from sugar in the average American diet increased by nearly a third, according to a 2014 study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Soda and other sweet drinks and foods, such as candy, are responsible for some of that sugar—but sugar is found in other foods as well, from savory fare such as prepared meats to condiments to items such as granola and snack bars that have grown in popularity in part because of their healthful image. It all adds up, and while the American Heart Association recommends that women and men eat no more than six and nine teaspoons of sugar a day, respectively, most people end up consuming 23 teaspoons, and the overconsumption is tied to a host of health problems, including obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The growing consensus that sugar is related to the epidemic levels of diet-related disease led the Food and Drug Administration to add a requirement that companies list the amount of “added sugar” as part of the overhaul of the Nutrition Facts label, which will debut in 2018. But on Tuesday, Kind—maker of just the type of snack bars, granola, and other items that are marketed as and believed to be healthy by many consumers—published the amount of added sugar in more than 60 of its products. The move comes as the company is working to reformulate a number of its Fruit & Nut bars—a mainstay of the TakePart office kitchen—to lower the amount of added sugar by as much as 56 percent in some flavors.

“When the FDA proposed that brands disclose the added sugar content in their products, we immediately stepped forward and voiced our support,” Stephanie Perruzza, a health and wellness specialist at Kind, wrote in an email to TakePart. “We decided to share the information now, two years in advance of the deadline set by the FDA, to show our support of the change and help promote the importance of providing consumers with clear nutrition information so they can make more informed food choices.”

The company’s new Kind Promises website, where the added sugar information is published alongside a more overarching sort of manifesto about the company's “health and nutrition guiding principles,” is certainly in line with Kind’s image as the healthy snack company. “We celebrate food by making snacks with ingredients that you can recognize, pronounce and enjoy,” reads Kind Promise #2, which is focused on treating “everyone and everything”—consumers and ingredients—“with integrity and kindness” and goes on to promise transparency and holistic, empathetic decision making by the company.

But earlier this year Kind briefly got into trouble with the FDA for its “healthy” marketing. In a letter to the company, the FDA detailed that its rules allow companies to “use the term 'healthy' as an implied nutrient content claim on the label or in the labeling of a food provided that the food, among other things, is ‘low saturated fat,’ ” a standard that many of Kind’s nut-heavy bars do not meet. But as is the case with the scientific understanding of sugar's relationship to diet-related disease, the understanding of the role of fat in diet has changed over the years, and fatty nuts such as almonds are generally considered to be part of a healthy diet.

The FDA relented and now allows brands to use “healthy” on their labeling but not as a nutritional claim. FDA press officer Lauren Kotowicki told TakePart at the time, “We believe now is an opportune time to reevaluate regulations concerning nutrient content claims, generally, including the term ‘healthy.’ ”

Now, with its added sugar announcement, Kind is again using what will be a federally regulated and required disclosure as a marketing tool, helping to build on the good-for-you image that its products maintain. It’s a powerful incentive to consumers. Take the “natural” label, which is not a regulated labeling term, yet consumers are buying more and more “natural” products, according to research from Consumer Reports. Furthermore, 60 percent of consumers believe that the label means those foods do not contain GMOs, artificial colors or ingredients, or chemicals and are not derived from ingredients treated with pesticides—none of which is true.

But for Kind, labeling language about the sugar content of its products is nothing new. “For years we have had front-of-label language about sugar content on a number of our snacks—for example, the bars in our best-selling Nuts & Spices line note on their packaging that they contain 5g of sugar or less,” Perruzza wrote. “When making brand decisions, we always focus on what we believe to be right for our company and our fans—in this instance we do hope that we’re also setting a positive example.”