Healthy Eating? – Something’s Not Adding Up

(I wrote this letter to Weetabix earlier. If any foodies  – or mathematicians – have anything to offer – please share!)

Dear Weetabix,

I’m interested in healthy eating and levels of added sugar in food. I regularly buy Weetabix products and have been studying your ingredients more closely of late.

Taking the ingredient labels on your various products, can you explain the following to me:

Product name            Ingredients                          Sugar per 100gr

‘Weetabix                             Wholegr Wheat 95%                                       4.4gr’

‘Oatibix                                   Wholegr Oats 97%                                            3.2gr’ 

(so far so good…)                                                                                                                      

‘Weetabix Minis                  Wholegr Wheat 93%                                    17.7gr……??

 

i.e if 93% of what goes into the box is wheat, mathematically not more than 7% can be sugar. The sugar levels in the other two products make sense in this regard. I don’t understand where this extra 10% sugar comes from?! Can you explain it to me.

I look forward to hearing from you.