Food safety group wants shops to ban children from buying energy drinks

Energy drinks may claim to give you wings, a buzz, a mega hit, an adrenaline rush or, in one case, a “nuclear weapon against hangover”. But food safety experts sum up the characteristics in a rather less appealing way: Sugar and caffeine.

Safefood, the all-island authority on food safety and nutrition, found a standard bottle of one popular brand contained 16 teaspoons of sugar and more caffeine than a shot of espresso while another had 13 teaspoons of sugar and two espressos worth of caffeine.

The organisation says it is worried about how much of these drinks are being consumed, particularly by young people, and wants retailers to adopt a voluntary code of practice that would require customers to produce proof that they are over 18 to buy them.