Sugar level in British Products

I think I'm going through a 'missing real American food' phase...  I've been laughing my ars* off about some of the postings on the food topic forum. It's nice to see postings about where one can buy American products here.  One thing that puts me off about British products is the sugar level in the food here.  Chocolate tastes much more sugary, coatings on crisps, Coca Cola, ketchup, pasta sauce, the list goes on.  Is it just me or does it seem to anyone else that things are more sugary?  Tried 'jelly' or equivalent to our 'Jell-o' about a month ago for the first time and it tasted like pure sugar with a tad of fruit flavor. I couldn't hack it. It was just like eating US jam.  I miss Jell-o.

Is it just me or does it seem to anyone else that things are more sugary?

It's just you.  There is nowway that the food here has more sugar in it than the food in the USA.  And that especially applies to chocolate.

I hate most of the stuff that Cadbury labels so-called chocolate here but even a bar of ordinary Dairy Milk tastes positively bitter compared to anything with a Hershey label I've tasted over there!

But hey, I'm prone to sweeping generalisations, don't you know?

Tim

I don't know about all products, but I do know that my friend couldn't drink the soda over here because it is made differently.  In the states corn syrup is the main ingreedient in the UK carbonated water is.  In fact they don't use corn syrup at all, just sugar.

Hi NativeOregonian,
I have to agree with you, I find British food to be very sweet.  Even their savory foods have a sweetness to them in my opinion.  The one thing I had the hardest time with was finding aspartame in just about everything.  Especially in childrens items.  Some of their 'juices' had both sugar AND aspartame.  I don't consume aspartame and I certainly won't let my children.  I am a sparkling water addict, drink it by the gallons.  When I moved to England I was excited to find sparking water with flavour essences.  I got home and poured myself a large refreshing glass of sparkling water only to find it was as sweet as syrup (aspartame).  Now I may be wrong, but isn't water loaded up with syrup and carbonation just another soda?  I also found the plain sparkling water to be so high in sodium it tasted like saltwater to me.  I now always check labels for ingredients.

Jana

LOL!!!!  I am laughing sooooo hard right now.  That was supposed to be   's a l t w a t e r' not 'salthingyer'.  I don't know what salthingyer tastes like and frankly, I don't want to know.

Jana

Took me a while to spot the censored word. LOL!

i agree i believe things are alot sweeter here.  as for chocolate....well its absolutely soooo much better here  BUT ....bkz its sooo much sweeter my son seems to bounce off the wall.  we have to limit his chocolate intake, strange but it never affected him when we lived in the states.  

......  One thing that puts me off about British products is the sugar level in the food here.  Chocolate tastes much more sugary, coatings on crisps, Coca Cola, ketchup, pasta sauce, the list goes on. .....

In the cause of balance please can I stick my oar in?

I moved to the US last year and I think that many thinks are sweeter here than in the UK, especially the chocolate, and also, bizarrely, the bread.

I think that the real difference is that things just taste different, which you are thinking is sweeter.  I am sure that corn syrup will give things a different flavour to sugar, but I can't see that British foods have more sugars than in the US.  ....And why does bread in the US have so much sugar in it?

hmmmm...but it IS true that in Britain they add extra sugar to yogurt and cranberry juice.

And why does bread in the US have so much sugar in it?

Because it tastes good that way.  

Amen meli!

Took me a while to spot the censored word. LOL!

LOL, me too. They really need to refine the censoring on this.

I'll shut that off, and hope for the best.

I noticed Cookie Crisp cereal has come. I'd really like to see Fruit Loops or Trix or even anything remotely like them, they were my fav's.

Oohhhh.... I would love to see fruit loops come over....

Because it tastes good that way.  

Which surely must be the retort to the original posting in this thread!  

Overall though, things are different between the US and the UK, not just food, but driving, shops, schools, clothes, customs, etc etc etc.  If you are planning to stay then it must be best to come to terms with the differences rather than for ever wish things were different.  

I moved to the US last year and some things are weird to me too, I could wish they were different, but things won't change just for me.  So, as this is now my home I take things as they come, differently!  

I haven't noticed that anything in particular tastes "sweeter" than in the US.  Except - and this is a big one - that there is sugar AND artificial sweetener in the soda.  That does confuse me a bit.  And it was in ginger ale!  I was on a flight and asked for some ginger ale to settle my stomach and (the Virgin brand at least) was sweeter than Sprite!!  DID NOT settle my stomach, as you can imagine.

So - has anyone found DRY ginger ale?

So - has anyone found DRY ginger ale?

Both Schweppes Dry Ginger Ale and Canada Dry are widely available in the UK - in fact Schweppes is the bottled mixer drink in the UK, probably sold in the majority of British pubs, but only some groceries.  Try smaller independent ones if the nearby larger ones don't sell Schweppes brand drinks.