Why nutrition labels that skip ingredients like sugar make business sense

Veer Arjun Singh on why shorter, sharper nutrition labels - the kind that skip a few ingredients such as sugar by many other names - are starting to make business sense

There’s apple juice concentrate in muesli, malt extracts in whole wheat cereal, and maltitol and maltodextrin in digestive ragi biscuits. The problem is not that sneaky sugar has found its way into daily consumables through obfuscation again. It’s the fact that these products scream “zero added sugar” from supermarket shelves to be then picked up by health-conscious idealists who have bought into the illusion of a sugar-free diet.

Identifying the sugar and artificial sweeteners hiding behind chemical names is a long-standing battle around the world. But what we are dealing with here is of a more primitive nature. The Food