[Semitangent]

What I would like to know here is whether the suggested serving amounts in those countries are adjusted, as well.

Sugar is bad for our health, sure, but it's not like it is rat poison. It gives easily digestible calories and in a product like baby formula, where you have defined amounts of that product to consume every day, "added sugars" in a vacuum does not seem to be such a big problem to me.

[chabes]

Giving empty sugar calories to babies (regardless of the fact that infant malnutrition is more prevalent in these countries) is bad actually.

[adrianN]

A baby's digestive system is not set up to digest sugars other than lactose for the first few months.

[edarchis]

It's maltodextrin and designed to be digestible by babies. You can buy it in a fine powder marketed as "Caloreen" from Nestlé.

Our pediatrician pushed us to use it in supplement to breast-feeding because the baby was below the expected curve. For what it's worth (not much), our baby that was fed Caloreen has no sugar addiction, quite the contrary.

Knowing our pediatrician, I am 99.9% sure that he didn't have any incentive from Nestlé and was just having the baby interest in mind. I am rather blaming the weight curves that are more designed for bottle-fed babies than breast-fed ones, combined with the human tendency to focus on the indicators rather than what they represent.

[agos]

article says it's sucrose or honey, not maltodextrin

[belval]

Genuinely asking, is that true? Sugar or sucrose is a combination of glucose and fructose that can be broken down by water, since glucose is the basic sugar that cell uses wouldn't that be available regardless of the baby's digestive system?

[adrianN]

Fructose is metabolized very differently from galactose. Babies also don't have a fully formed gut microbiota. Introducing carbohydrates other than lactose too early can mess that up.

[triceratops]

WTF is a "suggested serving amount" for a basic food? These aren't mixed nuts to snack on with your beer.

For formula-fed infants the suggested serving amount is "exactly as much they want".

[Thorrez]

The label is based on it, right? We need some way to compare the sugar content of products with different package sizes.

[triceratops]

Compare per 100g or per 100 calories. Suggested serving amount implies an amount that is considered appropriate to consume at one time. Which is fine for non-essential foods but nonsensical for baby formula.

BTW manufacturers can (and do) play games with the suggested serving amount to make their product appear healthier or more desirable. Standardize on a common denominator for a product category and stick to it. Then, if needed, call out how many units of the product are in that standard size.

[watwut]

Baby formulas do have suggested serving amounts, sugar or not.

[cryptonector]

GP's point is that you're not going to significantly reduce the suggested serving size of an essential food on account of having made it sweeter because the other nutrients are still needed.

[watwut]

Calories are pretty important nutritient too, one of the most important ones actually. And what sugar does is that you can get them in cheaper.

[triceratops]

What do you do if you've fed the suggested serving amount, the baby is still hungry, and there's no breast milk?

[Dalewyn]

A person's caloric and nutrient needs will vary from moment to moment, a suggested daily serving is merely an average value for average people used as an objective frame of reference.

And if we're going to argue whether a food has more or too much sugar than other foods, we need to use an objective frame of reference as a point of comparison.

Anyway, the Nestle hate in this overall thread is just as worthless as the Boeing bashing and Musk Derangement Syndrome seen in other threads.

[triceratops]

"An objective frame of reference" sounds like it should be standardized. A suggested serving amount is pretty arbitrary and up to the manufacturer to determine, and is the opposite of "objective".

In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40087543 I suggested using per 100g or per 100 calories as a reference. Extremely objective and clear.

[Closi]

At the very least it's a bad look considering Nestle's history here.

[temp0826]

It practically is poison, it's just the effect takes years to become obvious. Obesity, type-2 diabetes accompanied by all of its implications and effects leading to miserably unhealthy lives and early deaths. I hope there is a reckoning with the industry (and the "experts" and supposed government watchdog organizations lying and feigning to protect us) someday and sugar is treated more like cigarettes with disgusting pictures of people dying on the fronts of cereal boxes.

[watwut]

I wonder where eating disorders in teenagers come from ... seriously, sugar is not poison, it is food and on itself wont harm you.