Sugar-free beverages cause health controversy?

sugar-free beverages cause health controversy? Experts said: Sugar substitutes are indispensable in the modern food industry, and moderate amount is the correct way to eat

Use of high-quality sweeteners may become the next intersection for the development of sugar-free beverages

□ Intern reporter of this newspaper Xie Lei

□ The serious harm to the human body has been widely recognized by people. The "Healthy China Action (2019-2030)" shows that the intake of sucrose per person per day shall not exceed 25 grams per day. The "Diet Guide for Chinese Residents (2022)" recommends that "control the intake of added sugar, not exceed 50 grams per day, and it is best to control it below 25 grams." With the improvement of 's per capita disposable income and consumption level, people's consumption concepts and consumption methods are constantly upgrading, pursuing a healthier lifestyle, and prefer sugar-free and low-sugar products. In order to cater to consumers' health needs, sugar-free beverages labeled as "sugar-free, calorie-free, and fat-free" came into being.

From the popularity of Yuanqi Forest , to the industry's follow-up, sugar-free beverages have become "hot cakes", while controversy continues. Previously, the topic "Sugar-free beverages may be more harmful than sugar-free beverages" has become a hot search on social media, with a reading volume of over 100 million, which has caused many consumers to have questions: Can sugar-free beverages still be drunk? In response to this question, the reporter conducted relevant interviews.

What is a sugar-free beverage?

Reporter learned that according to the provisions of the "H Pre-packaged Food Nutritional Label General Rules ", the sugar content in food is less than 0.5 grams/100 grams (solid) or 100 ml (liquid), which can be marked as " sugar-free food ". To determine whether the beverage has sugar-free or sugar-free, the simplest and clearest way is to see if the ingredients list contains free sugars including monosaccharide (such as glucose , fructose ), and disaccharide (such as sucrose). Zhong Kai, director of the Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center, told reporters that the "zero sugar" and "zero cards" of food labels are nutritional claims and are used to guide consumers to purchase food. Therefore, it does not require absolute zero, but zero in the nutritional sense. For example, the requirement for "zero sugar" is to be less than 0.5 grams of sugar per 100 ml. The energy provided by such a little sugar is completely negligible, which is the same as zero. A real sugar-free beverage adds non-free sugar extracted from natural plants, which is the "sugar substitute". These sugar substitutes have lower calories than free sugars, but they can provide enough sweetness to satisfy the taste. For example, the natural sweetener " erythritol " that is fired by the Yuanqi Forest is a natural sweet substance produced by fermentation of the corn starch raw material yeast . After entering the human body, it does not participate in the human blood sugar metabolism and does not produce calories.

Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and general consultant of the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center Chen Junshi said that sugar substitutes have become an indispensable part in the modern food industry. "With the development of the food industry, especially the improvement of technological research and development, more, better and safer sweeteners will be released in the future. To develop the beverage industry, it is a trend to replace sugar with sweeteners, but it will not completely replace sugar-containing beverages, but will provide consumers with more choices." Chen Junshi said.

As Chen Junshi said, the reporter visited many supermarkets in Suzhou, Anhui and found that there are many types of sugar-free beverages on sale. In addition to sparkling water of various flavors, there are also many sugar-free carbonated beverages, tea beverages and juice beverages, which occupy half of the beverage shelves. In the beverage area of ​​a large supermarket, salesperson Mr. Li told reporters that the sales volume of sugar-free beverages is much higher than that of sugar-containing beverages.

According to the "2021 China Sugar-free Beverage Market Trend Insight Report" released by Key Laboratory of Big Data Mining and Knowledge Management of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the market size of the sugar-free beverage market increased from 1.66 billion yuan in 2014 to 11.78 billion yuan in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 38.69%, far exceeding the total growth rate of the beverage industry; the market will increase to 22.74 billion yuan in 2025, and the scale will double within five years; in 2027, the market will continue to climb to 27.6 billion yuan. Is

generation sugar safe?

"Many people think sugar substitutes are not safe.In fact, for compliant companies, every raw material that can be used in food has been approved by the National Health Commission. Whether it is chemically synthesized sweeteners such as aspartame, , , or emerging sweeteners such as erythritol from natural raw materials, it is safe. "Chen Junshi said that the country has also made regulations on the dosage and scope of use of food additives in accordance with scientific guidance. Standardized production enterprises produce according to standards, and consumers do not need to worry about safety issues.

Zhong Kai also said that there are currently 20 kinds of sweeteners approved in my country, which are widely used in food and beverages, table sugar substitutes, drugs and daily chemicals.

Regarding the view that the most widely circulated sugar-free beverage in the topic of "sugar-free beverages may be more harmful than sugar-free beverages" will make people fat, aggravate the occurrence of diabetes , and even lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases , Zhong Kai said , The reason why sugar-free beverages are more harmful than sugar-free beverages in the market may not be the problem in sugar-free beverages. Some consumers do not use sweeteners to replace added sugar, but while drinking sugar-free beverages, they also increase the consumption of sugar-free beverages, so that energy intake has not been reduced.

Zhong Kai believes that on the premise that the total diet remains unchanged, replacing added sugar with sweeteners can reduce energy intake and help weight management. At the same time, sweeteners help reduce the risk of caries in , and also provide more abundant food choices for people with hyperglycemia and diabetic patients. Chen Junshi also said that the intake of any food or beverage should be moderate. "Get fat" is due to consumers' intake of a lot of energy, but failing to exercise in time to consume excess daily energy, which is not related to sugar-free beverages.

reporters checked the information and found that there is no clear research conclusion on the long-term impact of sugar substitutes on human health. A recent study on the use of non-sugar sweeteners on health published by WHO stated that the test found that the use of non-sugar sweeteners will reduce the weight of adults, but on blood sugar, insulin, , and blood lipid and others have no significant impact, but whether long-term use will have a negative impact on health is still uncertain.

As for the view that excessive drinking of sugar-free beverages can lead to frequent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, it has been denied by many industry popular science experts: the rumor distorted the view that "increasing evidence shows that sugar-containing beverages have adverse effects on cardiovascular metabolism health" in an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Cardiology to "overdue drinking of sugar-free beverages leads to an increase in the probability of cardiovascular disease attacks."

"Although sugar-replacement does not have any health hazards, drinking beverages open is obviously not a healthy way of eating. "Zhong Kai said that consumers cannot think that sugar-free beverages have low calories and "drinking more bottles is fine", and drinking moderately is the correct way to eat. Meng Yanfeng, a nutritionist at Suzhou Municipal Hospital in Anhui Province, also said that they should not drink any drinks as water. It is recommended that normal people drink 1,500 to 1,700 ml of water every day.

In addition, a popular science author who did not want to be named told reporters that in various comprehensive negative comments on sugar substitutes on the Internet, , similar cases of out-of-context take are everywhere. In order to express rigor, some "experts" add the word "possible", but there is actually no definite evidence. The reason why various rumors are rising is to "attract" and obtain traffic, and on the other hand, there may be reasons for commercial competition. "It is wrong to talk about harm aside the dose. If you drink too much water, you can poison water. Under the common sense that consumers should not be confused by the information covered with professional skin. "The popular science author said.

Where is the way to sugar-free beverages?

After the rapid development in recent years, more and more companies have entered sugar-free beverages, and sugar-free beverages tend to be homogenized. Some industry insiders said that how companies can highlight the advantages of product differentiation in the future and strive to develop more diverse flavors to win the favor of consumers will be one of the key points of competition in the domestic beverage industry.

China Food Industry Analyst and Guangdong Food Safety Promotion Association Zhu Danpeng told reporters that in the long run, sugar-free must be the future trend."For beverage companies, sugar-free is a minimum stepping stone. The new generation of consumers' demand for weight management, , appearance management, and big health management is increasing, so they value products more. This is the transformation of the consumer side that forces the change of the industry end nodes, so that beverage companies can match and meet the core demands of consumers."

industry believes that with the increasing competition, enterprises need to develop deeper and even unique value and competitiveness in the health field in order to gain competitive advantages, drive the development direction of the industry and lead the development of the industry. Therefore, pursuing healthier beverages should meet consumers' taste, taste and other needs, while achieving better ingredients and no excessive additions.

"2021 China Sugar-Free Beverage Market Trend Insight Report" points out that among the 19 mainstream beverages reviewed, only 6 beverages from a few domestic brands such as Yuanqi Forest do not add preservatives such as sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate . Most sugar-Free drinks still have a certain amount of preservatives. The report believes that nearly 80% of consumers choose to consume sugar-free beverages because of "healthier" rather than having clear sugar control needs. The improvement of health awareness has made consumers more familiar with preservatives such as potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate. The increase in sugar-free beverage products has made consumers' selection standards more stringent. Many careful consumers have developed the habit of paying attention to product ingredients lists and nutritional ingredients lists. Under such a trend, reducing or canceling the use of preservatives will become the key point in the future competition in the sugar-free beverage market.

According to the reporter, after Yuanqi Forest announced the opening of the "Three 0 Factory" ("0 Preservative", "0 Pollution" and "0 Carbon") strategy last year, it invested heavily in the sterile carbonic acid production line, and used fully automatic sterile carbonic acid filling technology to achieve the log6 microbial control level, reaching the highest standard in the industry. This year, the sugar-free cola smell sparkling water launched by Yuanqi Forest no longer adds commonly used chemical preservatives, making "happy water" healthier. A relevant person in charge of Yuanqi Forest said that it will compete with the differentiated sparkling water reconstruction launched by traditional beverage companies on the ingredients list, and use more natural ingredients.

can be foreseen that the use of high-quality sweeteners and minimizes chemical additives may become the next intersection in the development of sugar-free beverages.