With the continuous progress of society, people are more pursuing not only to eat well, but also to eat healthy and scientific nutrition. For example, in the past, eating sugar mainly was sucrose, although it solved the need to increase calories, but sucrose-containing foods can make the human body fat, and many people have diabetes.
How to find a way that allows people to enjoy the taste buds that sugar brings and eat healthy and nutritious food?So there is the emergence of sugar substitutes.
What are sugar substitutes?
Sugar substitutes refer to a class of food additives that have a sweet taste but no calories or relatively low calories, and there are two common categories:
Non-sugar sweeteners: no nutrients, including natural and synthetic, common ones are aspartame, acesulfame potassium, etc.;
Sugar alcohols: can provide part of the energy, common such as erythritol, xylitol, etc.
Common sugar substitutes and their characteristics.
1.Xylitol.
It is a natural sugar substitute, extracted from plant raw materials, and the sweetness is 1 of sucrose2 times, the entrance has a cool feeling, suitable for diabetics, but too much can cause diarrhea.
2.Sorbitol.
It is also a natural sugar substitute, made by glucose reduction, the sweetness is 60% of sucrose, the calorific value is similar to sucrose, and excessive consumption can also cause diarrhea and digestive disorders.
3.Erythritol.
It is a natural sugar substitute, obtained by the fermentation of glucose, with a sweetness of 70% of sucrose, suitable for diabetics.
4.Cyclamate.
It is a synthetic sugar, which is 30 to 40 times sweeter than sucrose, and excessive consumption may cause cancer, damage to the kidneys and stomach.
5.Sodium saccharin.
Commonly known as saccharin, it is a synthetic sugar substitute, with a sweetness of up to 700 times that of sucrose, and regular consumption may cause damage to the liver, stomach and nervous system.
6.Aspartame.
It is a synthetic sugar substitute, a sugar substitute often used in the production of products such as soft drinks, which is about 180 times sweeter than sucrose, and is classified by the WHO as a group 2b probable carcinogen.
Other sugar substitutes include sucralose, acesulfame potassium, arabinose, stevia, monk fruit and maltitol.
Precautions for eating sugar substitutes.
1.Sugar substitutes are not a perfect substitute for eating at will, and you should pay attention to eating them in moderation.
2.Learn to read food labels, look at the ingredient list to distinguish the types of sugar substitutes, and know what to expect.
3.Patients with phenylketonuria (PKU) should not consume aspartame because the patient can produce too much tyrosine when ingested and cause health problems.
4.WHO recommends that non-sugar sweeteners in sugar substitutes be used as much as possible for weight control. (Yang Tiancheng and Li Lingyu are compiled according to network information).