The use of high intensity sweeteners in so-called ‘diet’ foods has actively encouraged the nation’s sweet tooth and driven the consumption of products with little or no nutritional value, the boss of Thorncroft drinks has claimed.
Speaking at an Agra Informa conference on functional drinks in London, Thorncroft founder and md Guy Woodall launched a blistering attack on the soft drinks industry for maintaining the “vicious cycle of dietary reliance on sugar”, instead of trying to re-educate the nation’s palate.
He said: “High intensity sweeteners like aspartame don’t encourage us to re-adjust our palates to a sensible sugar intake. We need to kick our sugar addiction and re-educate our palates. Instead of replacing sugar with sweeteners, we should be helping people get used to a lower level of sweetness. Soft drinks are the turkey twizzlers of the drinks world.”
He added: “The problem is that modern soft drinks are just sugar or sweeteners, water and added flavour, so if you reduce the sugar they taste weak, different and sometimes take on a metallic flavour in the case of a cola.”
By contrast, drinks made from natural ingredients such as fruits or plants with a sugar content of around 6% - half that of most standard soft drinks, still tasted great, he claimed.
“Sugar isn’t all bad. We just need to stop overdosing on refined sugar.”