How much sugar is really in kids’ health drinks?

Sometimes more than the front of the pack suggests — and here is how to find the real number yourself.

Updated October 2026 · 3 min read

Many parents reach for a so-called “health drink” as reassurance on a difficult day. It is a completely reasonable instinct. The catch is that the front of a pack and the nutrition table on the back don’t always leave the same impression — and the sugar is not always easy to spot.

We are not going to name a competitor here. A single number can change between formulations and markets, and it isn’t our style. What is far more useful is to hand you the skill to read any pack for yourself, today, with whatever is in your kitchen.

Why the sugar isn’t obvious

Ingredients are listed in order of weight. Sugar that appears in several different forms can each sit lower down the list than one single sugar would, even though, added together, they may be a large part of what is in the pack. The word “sugar” might not even appear — while several of its cousins do.

How to find the real number in 60 seconds

1. Turn the pack around to the nutrition table. Ignore the front entirely. Find the line for sugars under carbohydrate — and, where it is shown, the line for added sugars. That is the honest figure, in grams.
2. Compare per 100 g, not per serve. Serve sizes differ from product to product, so per-serve figures are hard to compare. The per-100 g column is the one you can line up fairly between two packs.
3. Compare the ingredient list to the claims. If a sugar, under any of its names, appears among the first two or three ingredients, sugar is a large part of what is in the pack — whatever the front promises.

The front of a pack is written to catch your eye. The back is where the rules are. Read the back.

“No artificial sweeteners” is not the same as “no sugar”

Here is where we hold ourselves to the same test. Our own carton is not sugar-free. We don’t use artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners — not sucralose, not aspartame, not stevia, not acesulfame-K. India’s food regulator doesn’t recommend them for children, and neither do we. Instead we use a little plain Australian cane sugar, so the cocoa tastes like cocoa, and the milk carries its own natural lactose.

So we never say “sugar-free” or “low sugar” — those would be exactly the kind of claim this article is teaching you to catch. The sugar figure is printed on the pack, in grams.

This article is general educational information, not medical advice. Sugar figures vary by product and formulation; always read the current pack.
For children aged 4 to 9. For ages 4–5, use only under medical advice of a physician or certified dietician or nutritionist. Not for infants under 12 months. Made in Australia. The first ingredient is Australian organic A2 protein milk from grass-fed cows. Organic here means the farms — pasture, herd and milk — are certified organic in Australia. The finished sachet is not certified organic, because the vitamins, minerals and DHA we add are not. We would rather tell you that than imply it.