Do Yuanqi Forest’s drinks really not make people fat?

After checking out all the popular milk teas, cheese and fruit teas, the most popular one is probably Yuanqi Forest.

Their Yuanqi water, Huoran tea and the newly popular Fuqi tea have begun to replace other beverages and become the "healthy and happy water" in summer.

Can we really drink these "sugar-free drinks" as much as we want without getting fat?

The animated picture comes from soogif

We tested all three beverages and will discuss them one by one.

The technical guy sacrificed himself by pricking himself with 20 needles and measuring the changes in his blood sugar. Everyone remember to watch to the end!

Yuanqi Water = Sugar-free Soda? Yuanqi Water is not actually the first product of Yuanqi Forest, but in terms of popularity, it is definitely the first.

The name sounds very energetic, but in essence it is soda sparkling water, which is what we commonly call soda, such as Sprite, Coke, Jianlibao, and Fanta.

If you drank Jianlibao when you were a kid (revealing your age), you will find that the rush of Yuanqi water bubbles is very similar to it. This is because Yuanqi water is processed by Jianlibao.

The animated picture comes from soogif

It is undeniable that the reason why Yuanqi water is so popular is inseparable from its taste. Many people think it is the best sugar-free sparkling water. And its selling point is also centered around "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories", which has won the hearts of people who want to drink it without getting fat.

Some people have doubted it, saying it tastes good and sweet, is it really sugar-free? Is it possible that sugar has been secretly added?

Let’s put it to the test.

We selected the most popular white peach flavor among the three flavors for testing, and the results are as follows.

The results showed that there was indeed no sugar, and the sweetness was due to the addition of sugar substitutes (that is, sweeteners).

If we convert the sweetness of these sugar substitutes into the sweetness of sucrose, then a bottle of Yuanqi water has the sweetness of about 46.3 g sucrose. (Note: it is sweetness)

Compare it with Sprite. A 500 ml bottle of Sprite contains 85% fructose syrup and 15% white sugar, which is about the sweetness of 60 g of sucrose.

No wonder Yuanqi water tastes good.

The animated picture comes from soogif

The reason why Yuanqi water tastes good and has no calories is that erythritol and sucralose are not metabolized by the body to produce heat after consumption, and the calorie intake is close to 0.

Put it in the refrigerator, and it can burn calories. However, if you drink iced Yuanqi water to lose weight, you need to drink 250 bottles for every pound of fat you lose, and you may end up drinking like a bucket of water or a bucket of gas.

Huo Ran Tea = Sugar-free tea? Huo Ran Tea is essentially a flavored oolong tea beverage, with the main feature being "sugar-free and fat-free". Let's take a look at the test data.

The results showed that neither sugar nor fat was detected. We calculated that a bottle of Huo Ran tea contains 14 g of erythritol, which is equivalent to the sweetness of 9.8 g of sucrose.

According to the national standard GB/T 21733-2008 "Tea Beverages", the content of tea polyphenols needs to be ≥ 200 mg/kg, and Huo Ran Tea reaches 411 mg/kg.

There's nothing wrong with this one.

Fuyi Tea = Sugar-free milk tea? This is the hot-selling model of the year. It is a hot-selling new product with a pre-sale of more than 200,000. It is also the clarion call for Yuanqi Forest to enter the milk tea industry after creating sugar-free soda and sugar-free tea drinks.

Those who like to play word games may have discovered that at Fuyi Tea, "sugar-free" and "0 sugar" have quietly become "no sucrose".

What does sugar-free mean?

Sucrose is white sugar, and in the world of sugar, there are also fructose, glucose, maltose, etc., all of which have calories. Yuanqi Forest should have replaced sucrose with other sugars.

In addition, Fuyi Tea also focuses on "low fat and high protein". We have prepared two flavors, original and jasmine, to put them to the test together.

According to the test results, Fuyi Tea does contain 0 sucrose, but each bottle contains about 6.3 g of fructose, and some sweeteners. The actual sweetness of a bottle of original Fuyi Tea is equivalent to the sweetness of 27.5 g of sucrose.

Some of you may think that the sweetness of Fuqi tea is not bad. In fact, it is the effect of sweetener and fructose:

A little bit of stevioside is very sweet, but it has a slightly bitter taste, so you need to add some erythritol to balance it out.

However, the transmission signals of these two bits are not very good, so there will be a delay in the production of sweetness on our tongue. Adding a small amount of fructose can make up for the lack of sweetness at the beginning.

And what about the “low-fat” in the promotion?

The national standard stipulates that liquid foods are considered low-fat if their fat content is ≤1.5 g/100mL. The fat content of milk tea is 1.3 g/100mL, which meets the requirement.

Let’s take a look at “high protein”.

Fuyi Tea is advertised to contain 3.3 times the protein. It sounds amazing. Does it mean we don’t need to drink milk anymore?

The actual protein content measured is 1.9%, while the standard for milk is more than 2.9%, which is a big difference. After checking the information, we found that they should be compared with the protein requirements of the tea beverage standard.

The national standard requires that the protein content of tea drinks should be ≥ 0.5%. This seems to meet the 3.3 times requirement. If you want to supplement protein, you should choose milk.

In addition, the caffeine content of Fuqi tea is not low, so it is recommended not to drink it before going to bed.

The real-life blood sugar change evaluation has not ended here. The technical guy contributed himself and drank a bottle of Yuanqi water, Huoran tea, Fuqi tea and Sprite to measure the changes in blood sugar.

Only he knows how painful the acupuncture is.

After drinking Yuanqi water, blood sugar did not rise, but directly decreased. Huoran tea and Fuyi tea both rose, but the extent was nothing compared to Sprite.

Speaking of this, let’s briefly talk about sugar substitutes.

Although sugar-free beverages with only sweeteners have no calories and will not raise blood sugar in the short term, we still do not recommend drinking them as water or having a bottle of them at any time, and we do not recommend consuming sweeteners in large quantities for a long time.

Here are the reasons:

People like to eat sweets because sugar can stimulate the brain's dopamine reward system, secrete more dopamine, and make us feel happy. However, eating sugar substitutes often does not have this stimulation, and when we are not satisfied, we may eat more sweets.

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Sugar alcohol-based sweeteners, such as xylitol, sorbitol, erythritol, and maltitol, can easily cause diarrhea if consumed in large quantities. Studies have also found that long-term consumption of sweeteners may affect intestinal flora.

Because sugar-free beverages do not contain sugar, additional preservatives need to be added to inhibit the reproduction of microorganisms. This is true for sugar-free cola and sugar-free Sprite. Of course, preservatives used in compliance with regulations are also safe.

Compared with the harm of sugar, sugar substitutes can indeed replace part of the sugar in an appropriate amount. Choosing sugar-free drinks is always better than choosing other high-sugar drinks.

Finally, our advice is to drink water if you can. If you really want to drink something sweet, sugar-free drinks are also good.

Among sugar-free beverages, you can prioritize: sugar-free tea drinks > sugar-free soda > sucrose-free milk drinks.

References:

1. Yin Junfeng, Wang Fang, Shen Danyu, Yuan Haibo, Xu Yongquan, Chen Jianxin. Analysis of sensory quality and physicochemical composition of tea beverage products in Hangzhou market[J]. China Tea, 2007(03):29-31.