Listed by weight

The front of a packet is an advert. The back is a legal document. Reading the second one takes about ten seconds once you know three things.

First, ingredients are listed by weight. Whatever is first is what you are mostly eating. If sugar is in the first three, under any of its many names, you are holding a pudding, whatever the front says.

Second, the words on the front mean almost nothing. Natural, wholesome, artisan, farmhouse, made with real fruit. None of them is regulated in any way that would help you. Look instead at how many ingredients there are and how many of them you could buy on their own.

Third, the serving size is chosen to flatter the numbers. A bag of crisps that is one and a half servings. A cereal box with a thirty-gram serving nobody has ever poured. Multiply back up to what you actually eat.

Then, if you like, turn our pouch over and do the same. It was designed to survive exactly that. Every line is something you could pick up, the sweetener is a food, and the serving is a scoop because that is what people use.