This summer, "sugar-free", "sugar substitute" and "zero calorie" have become the key words that affect young people to buy food. Various products such as drinks, yogurt and snacks have come on the market, giving consumers far more choices than before. Under the influence of the popularization of scientific concepts, many people realize the dangers of eating too much sugar, such as obesity and aging. Sugar-free products accurately capture the mentality of young people who want health but don't want to eat delicious food.
The demand of this generation of young people that "you can't have your cake and eat it" has driven the prosperity of the sugar-free market. But is sugar really a scourge? Is sugar substitute really healthy? Can long-term consumption of sugar substitute products bring side effects?
Under the "fear of sugar", everything can be saccharified
Then she saw "sugar" and had an instinctive resistance, but how could she get together with her young sisters without milk tea? She found that the tea shop she often drank introduced options such as "0 sugar, low-calorie stevia sugar" and "three-point sweetness" to adjust the variety and quantity of sugar, which won her favor.
"I can't drink boiled water, but my body doesn't allow me to drink sweet drinks any more." For Fan Ming, a boy, the "standard" when playing games is a bottle of iced soda or tea drink from My Sweetie, which is also the best-selling drink in many Internet cafes. Later, I gained 30 pounds, and my physical examination also found that uric acid was high.
Ming Can, a fan, can't give up the pleasure of carbonated soda, so he has been looking for alternatives, and all kinds of diet sodas on the market just meet his needs. He said: "The taste is definitely not as good as that with sugar, but it is acceptable."
Sugar-free does not mean that it is not sweet, but uses various sugar substitutes as sweeteners to satisfy the taste. According to China's General Rules for Nutrition Labeling in prepackaged foods, foods with sugar content below 0.5g/ 100g (solid) or 100mL (liquid) can be labeled as "sugar-free food".
Take drinks as an example. If you want to pursue health completely, white water is the right choice, but if you can't give up the temptation of sweetness, sugar-free drinks with sweetness have become the second best choice for young people.
In the past, there were only a few kinds of sugar-free drinks, and one kind of tea drink without sugar was rarely bought because of its bitter taste. Since last year, various sugar-free drinks have emerged one after another. Coca-Cola Company's "Three Musketeers" Coca-Cola, Sprite and Fanta all launched sugar-free products, and the old brand Master Kong launched sugar-free cold tea. Emerging beverage brands like Yuan Qi Forest have quickly won a place in the market because of their focus on sugar-free.
What sugar substitutes are used in these products? The ingredients list gives the answers: aspartame for sugar-free Coca-Cola, erythritol for Yuan Qi forest, erythritol for Xiao Xi tea and sucralose.
Accurate insight, rapid development of demand
Qingna, who likes fitness, found many people's demand for sugar-free products in the fitness circle a few years ago. "We often say that to lose weight, it is more important to control your mouth and control your mouth. They are a group that is both antagonistic and integrated, and they want some delicious products with low carbon, low water and low sugar. " Whole wheat bread can be bought in the market, but the comment is often "I know it is healthy, but I can't eat it, I'm sorry".
Later, Qingna's father unfortunately suffered from cancer, and his family members had a history of diabetes for 40 years, which prompted her to set up a healthy hand-baked Fit gourmet, baking with flaxseed powder and coconut powder as raw materials, making bread delicious and healthy, and selling well on the Internet.
Later, her customer base became more and more diverse: students who want to lose weight, parents who don't want their children to eat too much polysaccharide, diabetics, and pregnant women who need to control sugar. "Many girls think that anti-sugar can slow down aging. Although the relationship between the two is uncertain, it is enough to attract women to buy."
On the other hand, Qingna believes that the improvement of sugar-making technology in recent years has promoted the richness of products. Xylitol is the most impressive sugar substitute for many people. In recent years, many natural sweet substances such as erythritol have appeared in the market, which greatly improved the taste and promoted many people to choose sugar substitutes.
Eating sugar-free products should be moderate.
The sales of sugar-free products are booming, but there are still people who are worried about whether long-term use of sugar substitute products is beneficial to health.
"Without any desire, there is no need to pay for satisfaction." Fan Zhihong, an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, College of Food Science, China Agricultural University, said. In the past, many people had a dependence and love for sweetness, but now young people's health awareness has improved, and they are in a state of contradiction between rationality and instinct, so sugar substitute products are very popular.
However, the health effects of long-term consumption of sugar substitutes need to be reminded. For example, aspartame is a dipeptide sweetener. Some studies believe that it may interfere with amino acid metabolism, affect the balance of neurotransmitters, such as the level of catecholamine in the brain, make the nervous system excessively excited, which is not conducive to the anti-anxiety and anti-depression functions of the human body. In an article on WeChat official account, she said that in mechanism, sweeteners make people feel sweet, but they can't cause blood sugar to rise correspondingly, which belongs to the "deception" of human metabolic system. This long-term repeated deception is likely to lead to the disorder of metabolic regulation mechanism.
"Don't indulge yourself just because there is no real sugar in sweets and drinks." Fan Zhihong pointed out that excessive indulgence in sweetness itself is an unhealthy eating behavior. It is a reasonable way to accept the taste of natural food and obtain sweetness mainly from natural foods such as fruits and dried fruits. (with deletion)
(Source: China Youth Daily)