Thailand moves to cut sugar in popular drinks amid health drive | Thailand
Holding their phones up, a crowd of customers watch intently as Auntie Nid prepares her best-seller: Thai iced tea.
Condensed milk is poured into a glass, then three heaping tablespoons of sugar, and then freshly filtered tea. The final product, a deep orange, creamy treat, is poured into a plastic bag filled with ice.
“I want to pamper my customers,” says 68-year-old Auntie Nid, who prefers to be known by her pseudonym.
But the Thai government is trying to reduce the amount of sugar added to the country’s most popular drinks.
This month, nine of the country’s major coffee chains committed to halving the amount of sugar considered “normal sweetness” in some of their drinks as part of a new campaign to reset people’s taste buds and improve public health.
Thai people consume an average of 21 teaspoons of sugar per day; This is much more than the World Health Organization’s recommended daily limit of six teaspoons.
Sugary drinks are a big culprit, and Thailand has historically One of the largest in Asia Consumers who consume calories from sugary drinks.
Thailand has taken other steps to combat sugar, including a sugar tax that was phased in from 2017, the final phase of which was implemented last year. This targets pre-packaged sugary drinks.
Pojjana Hunchangsith, an assistant professor at Mahidol University, said the tax has helped. “One of the biggest impacts has been product reformulation, with many manufacturers reducing sugar levels to avoid the higher tax rate,” he said.
But the tax does not affect street vendors or cafes, where menus are filled with a dizzying selection of desserts, from boba milk teas to iced cocoa, lemon tea to pink milk, a Thai drink made from sala syrup. “These are very important sources of sugar intake in Thailand,” Pojjana added, but freshly made drinks are much more difficult to regulate.
The government’s latest initiative will involve some of the country’s largest cafe chains. Many stores already display cards that offer customers different levels of sweetness: 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. Within the scope of the new campaign, some drinks will have 100 percent sweetness and half as much sugar as before.
Ann Thumthong, 55, a taxi driver in Bangkok, welcomed the measures, saying it was difficult to avoid sweet things when buying food and drinks.
Thumthong said that it is possible to rearrange your sweetness preferences so that you need less sugar, adding that you become more health-conscious as you get older. “In the past, when I finished my meal, I would go straight to the desert, but now I prefer fruits instead,” he said.
Phumsith Mahasuweerachai, an associate professor at Khon Kaen University’s Faculty of Economics, said it is possible to encourage customers to make better choices even with simple adjustments. He conducted a study that found that giving customers the option to choose how sweet their drink would be encouraged them to choose less sugary drinks. He added that providing calorie information did not significantly change his preferences.
“If we don’t nudge [customers] “or encourage them, it’s hard for them to make the change,” he said and continued: “They go to the cafe and it’s automatic.”
Shopper Phakamas, 39, from Auntie Nid’s shop, bought iced cocoa during her lunch break, providing relief from the Bangkok heat.
“I think it’s okay to consume sugar, I don’t consume it very often; I might consume a glass or two during the week,” he says.
Auntie Nid, who has been serving tea and coffee for 30 years in her shop in Bangkok’s old town, cannot understand changing her recipe.
“No, no, no,” he says as a line of tourists, as well as some local workers and students, stretches toward the door. He says the store has always been popular, but thanks to social media, it has become especially famous among foreign visitors.
“The reason these drinks are popular is because of their strong, intense taste,” he says. “Without sugar, coffee and tea will be bland and bitter.”
