TempoLife › Features › Video explainers › sugar-in-a-soft-drink
How much sugar is in a can, in teaspoons
The viewer converts a grams-of-sugar figure into something they can picture, and does it themselves next time.
There are no videos here yet, and this page does not pretend otherwise. TempoLife has published no explainer videos, so nothing on this surface is watchable and there is no player anywhere on it. What is published is the script library: the full storyboard for each explainer, ready to shoot.
The hook
“Thirty-five grams. Does that mean anything to you?”
First four seconds. It states the surprise outright rather than promising one, because a promise is a reason to scroll and a surprise is a reason to stay.
Why this topic is worth 65 seconds
A 330 ml can of a standard cola carries about 35 g of sugar, which is more than an adult daily reference intake of free sugars in one drink.
The trick the script relies on is the sugar-cube substitution. Nine cubes on a table beats a number in an infographic every time.
The video is not about villainising a specific drink. It is about giving the viewer a way to spot the same figure on any label they pick up.
The reason free sugars matter more than total sugars is context. A pear brings fibre and water alongside its sugar; a can of drink brings the sugar on its own.
Grams are invisible. Teaspoons are not. The conversion is trivial arithmetic — about four grams to a teaspoon — and doing it once on screen changes how a label reads permanently.
It also lets the script make an honest, non-alarmist point: the sugar is not poison, it is energy with nothing else attached, and the reason to notice is that it displaces food that brings something with it.
The storyboard
| Time | On screen | Voiceover | Visual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:04 | 35 grams | Thirty-five grams. Does that mean anything to you? | Can on a table, label turned to camera. |
| 0:04–0:16 | Convert it | A level teaspoon of sugar is about four grams. So divide by four, and pour it out. | Teaspoon dipping into a sugar jar, then counting into a glass bowl. |
| 0:16–0:32 | Pour it in real time | One. Two. Three. Keep going. That is one can. | Unbroken shot, spoonfuls landing in the bowl, count on screen. |
| 0:32–0:48 | What it costs in energy | In calories that is a specific number, and it arrives with no protein, no fibre and nothing to chew, which is why it does not fill you up the way food does. | The kcal figure over the bowl of sugar. |
| 0:48–1:00 | The honest framing | Sugar is not poison. It is energy with nothing else attached. The reason to notice a can is that it takes up room a meal could have used. | The bowl of sugar beside a plate of food of equal calories. |
| 1:00–1:05 | Do it yourself | Grams divided by four. Every label, every time. | End card with the arithmetic. |
Read it as a script
The voiceover column, in order, is the whole piece:
Thirty-five grams. Does that mean anything to you?
A level teaspoon of sugar is about four grams. So divide by four, and pour it out.
One. Two. Three. Keep going. That is one can.
In calories that is a specific number, and it arrives with no protein, no fibre and nothing to chew, which is why it does not fill you up the way food does.
Sugar is not poison. It is energy with nothing else attached. The reason to notice a can is that it takes up room a meal could have used.
Grams divided by four. Every label, every time.
Every number this script shows
The teaspoon pour. 35 g of sugar in a 330 ml can, a level teaspoon taken as 4 g.
| What appears on screen | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar, per 100 g | 387 kcal | TempoLife food database (USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy) |
| Sugar in a 330 ml can | 35 g | Typical label value for a full-sugar soft drink |
| Teaspoons to pour on camera | 8.8 tsp | Computed on this page at 4 g per level teaspoon |
| Energy in that sugar | 135 kcal | Computed on this page |
| Brisk walking to match it | 24 min | Computed on this page |
Nothing in the storyboard above quotes a figure directly. The beats refer to numbers and this table supplies them, so a script written months ago cannot go stale against its own data.
Production notes
- The pour must be one continuous take. Cutting it destroys the entire effect.
- Use a plain can or decant into a glass. No brand on screen.
- Keep the "not poison" beat. Without it this is a scare video, and scare videos do not change behaviour for long.
Closing card
Look up any drink at tempolife.app/calories
General information, not medical advice. These scripts describe averages across populations; nothing in them is a diagnosis or a treatment recommendation.
Source: Figures computed from the TempoLife food database (USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy) and the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities · checked 2026-09-02
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