“Healthy through eating” series | Are you choosing the right sugary foods?

"Rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea" are necessities in our daily life. With the improvement of economic level, sugar has gradually entered everyone's diet. With the improvement of public health awareness, consumption concepts such as "anti-sugar", "sugar-free" and "zero sugar" are popular among the public, and a large number of sugar substitutes have appeared on the market. What are the categories of sugar? How should we choose sugar-free food? Let's find out together.

What types of sugar are there?

Monosaccharides: including glucose, fructose and galactose.

Disaccharides: including sucrose, maltose and lactose.

Sugar alcohol: including xylitol, sorbitol, maltitol, etc.

Oligosaccharides (also known as oligosaccharides): including raffinose, stachyose, oligofructose, etc.

Polysaccharides: including starch, cellulose and glycogen, etc.

The sugar we usually refer to is edible sugar with sucrose as the main ingredient. These sugars include white sugar, granulated sugar, brown sugar, dark brown sugar, rock sugar, powdered sugar, etc., and their main ingredient is sucrose.

How to choose sugar-free foods?

Choose sugar-free foods produced by regular manufacturers. When buying food, pay attention to the food label. The food label is the "identity card of the food", which contains a lot of food information such as the category, ingredients, and nutritional composition of the food. It is recommended to choose sugar-free foods that are rich in nutrients, simple in ingredients, and fresh in date.

Choose a sweetener that suits you according to your actual needs. There are many types of sweeteners, and my country advocates the use of substitutes such as sugar alcohols and oligosaccharides that are beneficial to health. It should be noted that patients with inflammatory bowel disease should not eat foods containing artificial sweeteners.

Finally, I would like to remind everyone that sugar is an important source of energy for the human body, but excessive consumption of any nutrient may pose health risks to the human body. Sugar safety is closely related to human health. In our daily diet, we should consume sugar in appropriate amounts to reap the benefits and avoid the harm.

This article was scientifically reviewed by Xin Xiaowei, nutritionist and deputy director of the Nutrition Department of the Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.