How to understand the choice of sugar-free food

To understand sugar-free foods, we must first understand what sugar is. Sugar is a class of organic compounds, the main substance that produces heat energy in the human body, and can be divided into monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides. Monosaccharides mainly include glucose, fructose, galactose, etc.; disaccharides mainly include sucrose, maltose, etc.; polysaccharides are polymerized sugars composed of at least more than 10 monosaccharides, such as starch, cellulose and glycogen.

The "sugar-free" in sugar-free food does not mean it is absolutely sugar-free or sugar-free. The internationally accepted concept is that sugar-free food cannot contain sucrose and sugars from starch hydrolysates, including glucose, maltose, fructose, starch syrup, glucose syrup, fructose syrup, etc. However, it must contain substitutes corresponding to sugar, generally using sugar alcohols or oligosaccharides and other sweeteners that can replace sucrose without raising blood sugar. According to the "General Principles of Nutrition Labeling of Pre-packaged Foods in the National Food Safety Standards" of my country, if a food is labeled as sugar-free or sugar-free, the sugar content should be ≤0.5 grams per 100 grams or per 100 milliliters of food.

Sugar-free foods have become increasingly recognized and accepted as healthy products. When consumers choose sugar-free or sugar-free foods from a health perspective, they must keep in mind the following two key points:

1. Understand foods with high sugar content. Sugar is widely present in daily life. Natural foods with high sweetness often have high sugar content. Honey contains a large amount of glucose and fructose. Sweet fruits contain sucrose, fructose, and glucose. Fresh milk also contains a certain amount of lactose. Processed foods such as commercially available sugary drinks, cola, Sprite, iced black tea, etc. often contain sucrose, glucose, and fructose. In order to satisfy the taste, the sum of these three is often around 10%.

2. Take a good look at the ingredient list. Check whether it contains words such as "dextrin", "maltose", "starch syrup", "corn syrup", etc. Dextrin means it contains sugar; give priority to products containing oligosaccharides and sugar alcohols, and try to avoid products containing sweeteners such as "aspartame", "cyclamate", "acesulfame potassium", etc.

3. Do not ignore the role of starch. While avoiding natural foods or processed foods with high sugar content, special groups such as diabetics should not ignore the starch content when choosing "sugar-free" foods. When choosing processed foods, you should look at their nutritional composition table to see the amount of starch or carbohydrates. Starch is a polysaccharide, which will be quickly broken down into glucose after entering the gastrointestinal tract, thereby raising blood sugar.

In short, wise consumers should never indulge themselves in eating foods and drinks that have little nutritional value just because they are labeled "sugar-free".