It's not a scam. And added sugars are listed prominently in the nutrition facts.

It's the fact that different sugars have different properties. In terms of texture, moisture, etc. And they can be used at different stages of the manufacturing process.

There's nothing wrong with this. Nutrition facts clearly label the total added sugars.

Plus, strawberries are often going to be listed first anyways because traditional jam is approximately a 1:1 ratio of fruit to sugar. So even if it were just one type of sugar, strawberries could still be listed first.

You're defending the example (why idk), but what about, say, a dog food company listing "buffalo meat" as its #1 ingredient by simply splitting every filler ingredient into constituent parts?

How does one reward the "good guys" when one can't tell the difference between a gamed metric and an honest one?

I agree, no scam here.

When I look at an ingredients labels I assume it’s listed by order of quantity, but it tells you nothing about the total amount.

You could have two ingredients listed but you don’t know if it’s 99% first ingredient, 1% second or 50.1% first and 49.9% second.

That’s why you look at the nutritional label

I agree with this. "Scam" is used way too liberally these days. I can read , and like you say the nutrition facts clearly list total added sugars in a standardized way.

Completely unrelated topic, but Lord I wish cookie popups were standardized the same way nutrition facts are.