A baked potato contains the equivalent of 19 lumps of sugar - almost three times the amount in a can of Coca-Cola

The seemingly innocent potato could be fuelling the nation's obesity crisis.

A new BBC documentary is set to reveal that carb-heavy foods, like the 'humble spud', are actually loaded with sugar.

Experts taking part in the programme have discovered there are nearly 90g of sugar in a single baked potato - the equivalent of 19 lumps of sugar.

By comparison, a Snickers bar has just under six lumps of sugar in it, and a can of Coca-Cola has seven-and-a-quarter.

Foods like bread and pasta also effectively contain a lot of sugar, because our bodies break the carbohydrates into glucose.

The findings have led scientists to conclude that carbohydrates could be driving up obesity rates in the UK.

Less than 50%

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