Tim Worstall

Weights and Measures

Err, might there be something a little wrong with the conversions here?

A typical loaf of wholemeal bread had a third more sugar in 2002 than it had 1978. Hovis wholemeal bread has even more sugar, with 3.7g per 100g. Sainsbury’s wholemeal bread has 3.5g sugar per 100g. This means there is a teaspoon of sugar in every three slices.

In data from a 1978 industry handbook, cans of tomato soup had 2.6g of sugar per 100g. Many soups today contain double that. Waitrose tomato soup had almost three teaspoons of sugar (6.4g) per serving.

I’ve got a teaspoon of sugar as weighing 4.2 grammes.

In

5 responses

  1. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    Why? If 3 slices of bread weigh 100g, that gives a figure in the right ball park, doesn’t it?

    Reply
  2. Kay Tie Avatar
    Kay Tie

    Why do they put sugar in bread? I remember from my school days making bread and there was no sugar in the recipe then.

    Reply
  3. dsquared Avatar
    dsquared

    Some bread recipes have a bit of sugar to speed up the action of the yeast. In general though, industrial food producers tend to just bung a bit of sugar and salt in there to cover up the fact that the basic product doesn’t taste very nice.

    Reply
  4. Mike Davies Avatar
    Mike Davies

    Matthew, it’s the last bit
    “Waitrose tomato soup had almost three teaspoons of sugar (6.4g) per serving.”

    Reply
  5. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    Ah ok, i thik they simply have omitted the “per 100g” after the 6.4 – hence on a 200ml serving it woud be 12.8, ie 3 teaspoons.

    Reply

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