Sugar in Canada: Drinking Less and Eating More?

We have some surprising days ahead in the war on sugar. We now have a decade of it behind us. So people all over the world are responding. Canada offers us a new snapshot that tells us how it’s going there. If you believe the self reports, sugar in Canada is down.

But the picture is not one of a simple linear trend. Canadians say they are drinking less sugar and eating more of it. It nets out to nine percent drop in all adults between 2004 and 2015.

Reporting Errors

However, self-reporting bites us again in this study. It seems that patterns of misreporting have changed over the decade. And the authors of this analysis tell us misreporting may explain at least some of the overall decrease in sugar consumption. These researchers have methods to classify people as under-reporters, plausible reporters, or over-reporters. Under-reporting has become more common.

So then, when they consider only the “plausible” reporters, the overall decrease in sugar consumption goes away. It’s a small decrease that’s not statistically significant.

A Distinct Pattern

Nonetheless, the pattern is pretty clear. People seem to be getting the message that they shouldn’t drink so much sugar. So they’re eating it instead. Sugars from juice dropped by almost half in younger children. In older children and adults, sugar from sodas dropped by half or more.

But big bumps in frozen desserts, sweetened yogurt, and baked goods are making up a big part of the drop. So shall we bring on a cookie tax? Or maybe a tax on sweetened dairy products? The possibilities are endless.

Click here for the report and here for more from Medical Xpress.

Sugar Bowl and Lemon, painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir / WikiArt

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January 30, 2019