1, sugar-free food: not absolutely sugar-free.
Many people think that sugar-free food means no sugar, and eating sugar-free food will not lead to an increase in blood sugar. Some businesses also promote sugar-free food in this way. Actually, this is not right. Health food experts, the concept of sugar is relatively broad, generally divided into monosaccharide, disaccharide, oligosaccharide and polysaccharide.
. In daily food, fruit and honey contain fructose in monosaccharide, traditional sugar products such as white sugar, cotton sugar and brown sugar contain sucrose in disaccharide, and bean foods contain oligosaccharide raffinose and stachyose.
Grains contain starch and cellulose polysaccharide. Strictly speaking, sugar-free foods should refer to foods that do not contain the above-mentioned sugar substances, while the sugar-free foods advertised on the market at present mostly refer to foods that do not contain sucrose. In order to meet the requirements of human body for sweetness, sweeteners can be used instead of sugar in food additives. The sugar substitutes that have been approved for use in China include maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol and lactitol.
At present, some merchants claim to consumers that "sucrose-free" food is sugar-free food, which is misleading. Dong said that sucrose-free food does not mean that there are no other sugars, so this kind of products is only sucrose-free food, not sugar-free food. Although some products are marked as "sucrose-free", their ingredients list is marked with white sugar. Sucrose and white sugar are the same thing, but their names are different. Consumers should be alert to this practice of stealing concepts.
2, before buying: first look at the ingredients list.
Sweeteners are generally added to foods without sucrose. State-approved sweeteners are safe to human body, with low or no calories, and will not raise blood sugar. However, sweeteners taste different from sucrose. Because sucrose is not only sweet, but also has the functions of improving food viscosity, making food swell and soften, and increasing flavor. Therefore, thickener, stabilizer and quality improver will be added to a considerable number of sucrose-free foods to improve the taste of food. The commonly used thickening substitutes are dextrin and modified starch produced by starch hydrolysis, which are also sugars. In this regard, Dong reminded consumers that before buying sugar-free products, they must read the ingredient list clearly to guard against the influence of high thickener content or other sugars other than sucrose on blood sugar.
Most consumers of sugar-free foods are diabetics, and diabetics should not think that they can safely eat at the sight of the word "sugar-free", or even think that it will help lower blood sugar. Some merchants claim that sugar-free foods have the function of lowering blood sugar, which is extremely unscientific. Many sugar-free foods are made of starch and other raw materials After digestion, absorption and metabolism, these foods can not only generate heat, but also convert it into glucose. If diabetic patients eat sugar-free food without restriction, it will also cause total calories to exceed the standard and blood sugar to rise.
3. Sugar-free foods should be eaten with caution.
Diabetes is a chronic systemic endocrine and metabolic disease. Because of the relative or absolute shortage of insulin in the body, the blood sugar rises continuously, which leads to abnormal metabolism of human organs. Sugar-free foods are low in calories, and moderate consumption can reduce the hunger caused by diet control in diabetic patients. However, sugar-free foods still have a certain impact on blood sugar and total calories. Therefore, when diabetics eat sugar-free or low-sugar foods, they should reasonably control the intake of staple foods under the guidance of doctors, and count the calories of sugar-free foods into the total calories of daily diet to maintain the balance of total calories every day.
When patients eat "sugar-free food", they must pay attention to the fact that this food has no hypoglycemic effect, and never listen to the magical effect of advertising. Even sugar-free food with qualified quality can't replace drug treatment. Clinically, patients who blindly eat sugar-free foods, not only can't drop their blood sugar, but their blood sugar rises. These patients often think that sugar-free foods can help lower blood sugar, and excessive consumption or even eating fake sugar-free foods can not only help lower blood sugar, but also harm health. For diabetic patients, it is very important to control blood sugar through diet, which is to achieve a good balance of dietary nutrition on the basis of low calorie, and more importantly, to control diet reasonably on the basis of reasonable choice of hypoglycemic drugs.
In fact, many foods that can quickly raise blood sugar are not sweets. For example, white bread has a stronger ability to raise blood sugar than honey, white rice has a stronger ability to raise blood sugar than apples, and steamed bread and puffed food are also foods that can quickly raise blood sugar. Some patients with stable blood sugar can eat safe sweets, including apples, pears, peaches, dried apricots, cherries, citrus, grapefruit, papaya and other fruits, as well as yogurt and low-sugar milk. In other words, sugar-free is not the best choice for diabetics. The most important thing is to control blood sugar with drugs and calories with diet to achieve a balanced diet.