Sugar-free drinks: a flash in the pan or full of energy?

Sugar-free fiber Sprite, sugar-free zero-degree cola, sugar-free almond dew, sugar-free sour plum soup, Fanta zero card series... In recent years, as people's health awareness has increased, more people choose to buy sugar-free beverages, the market for sugar-free beverages are also emerging. Are sugar-free drinks really sugar-free? How do sugar-free foods gain consumers' favor? Reporters recently visited Beijing's "sugar-free circle".are in high demand from young consumers
more and more consumers are buying drinks with their ingredient labels, especially as a percentage of sugar.
reporter recently in Beijing Tongzhou Wanda a brand of beverage shop to see, before the order table placed a "0 sugar low card" sign, which also wrote "no sugar" "original natural sugar" and other words. In the a la car oddity app, most products have a "0 sugar low card" option. The store clerk said that if consumers have demand, goods can generally be made sugar-free or low-sugar.
"Low sugar will be better for your body, you'll drink more, you'll probably eat less fat," he says. A female student studying at a university told reporters that since college, she has been a big fan of "zero-energy" and "zero-fat" drinks, and many of the girls around her also pay special attention to the sugar content of drinks when choosing them because of their emphasis on staying in shape.
in a supermarket in a Tongzhou neighborhood, drinks marked "sugar-free" were placed prominently on shelves. In addition to the common sugar-free cola, there are some brands of almond dew, tea, sour plum soup, etc. have introduced sugar-free products.
"Sugar-free drinks are more expensive, but there are not many people willing to buy them, and customers who used to drink carbonated drinks now prefer sugar-free drinks." Ms. Liu, the head of the supermarket, said she had been putting sugar-free and sugar-free drinks on supermarket shelves since the previous year.
sugar content has gradually become a new marker for evaluating health." Chen Jie, executive vice president of the Shanghai Beverage Industry Association, believes that as consumers in the new era pay more and more attention to healthy eating, a variety of sugar-free, zero-fat, zero-calorie beverages will become popular products.Sugar-free drinks are not absolutely good
sugar-free, low-sugar drinks are highly regarded among health-seeking people because they meet the taste requirements of many people and reduce concerns about consuming too much sugar, in line with the new demand that they should be both good and unhealthy. Reporters note that although these beverage packaging will be marked in a prominent position "sugar-free" words, but a closer look at the ingredients table can be found that some sugar-free beverages will be labeled containing anthysol, sucrose, lysol and other ingredients.
the sweetness of sugar-free drinks come from these ingredients? Some people in the industry explain that many sugar-free products taste very sweet, because the addition of sweeteners, that is, the usual said sugar substitute. At the same amount, the sugar substitute drink is much sweeter than sucrose, so the amount is relatively small to meet the same taste requirements. For example, aspartas is about 200 times sweeter than sucrose; saccharin is a zero-calorie sweetener, 200-700 times sweeter than sucrose; sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sucrose and is the only low-calorie/zero-calorie sweetener made from sugar; and stevia is 30 times sweeter than sucrose, but the body does not metabolize stevia, so it has no heat and does not affect blood sugar levels.
there are many types of sweeteners, according to the source can be divided into natural and synthetic sweeteners, according to nutritional value can be divided into nutritional sweeteners and non-nutritional sweeteners. For example, the family used more sucrose, glucose and so on are natural nutritional sweeteners, such as food production industry used more saccharin, Ansai honey, etc. are non-nutritional sweeteners.
according to China's "Prepackaged Food Nutrition Labeling General Rules", when the energy in food is less than 17 kJ/100 g (solid) or 100 ml (liquid), it can be labeled "0 energy". When the sugar content is less than 0.5 g/100 g (solid) or 0.5 g/100 ml (liquid), it can be labeled "Sugar content is 0". So even "sugar-free" drinks are not the same as being completely sugar-free, but the amount of sugar is not up to the national standard.
drinking sugar-free drinks for a long time really have no side effects and won't get fat? Experts warn that although 0 sugar 0 card drinks have low energy characteristics, but also to drink scientifically and rationally.
sugar-free drinks are not the best choice for people who lose weight. Because sugar intake in sugar-free beverages is too low to meet the body's basic energy needs, the body's storage of glycogen can only be maintained for a few hours, must be constantly replenished from the diet, when the body's sugar intake is insufficient, the body's tissues such as the brain and nerve tissue can not function properly, resulting in slow brain response, will also cause the body's ketone body increase.Superance and functionalization
In fact, the sugar-free market has always existed, but in recent years more and more people realize that eating too much sugar is not good for health, the concept of sugar-free is gradually gaining popularity. Even so, consumers have not given up on the taste of the pursuit, there are still many young consumers difficult to accept the "sugar-free" taste. Farmer's Mountain Springs launched in 2011 sugar-free tea "Oriental Leaves", because no sugar, no sweet taste, some consumers do not buy.
addition, sugar-free drinks have always had a problem with high pricing. For example, the same 500 ml tea drink, a sugar-free oolong tea price of 6 yuan, sugary green tea price of 3 yuan; Although willing to "taste fresh" users to bring sales to the enterprise, but the high price will still be to a certain extent to "advise" some of the consumers who intend to buy back.
from the niche to the masses, sugar-free beverages as a whole are in a period of rapid development. Industry experts say that whether it is sugar-free or added dietary fiber, is the embodiment of the functionalization of beverages. With the entry of more and more enterprises, there may be a trend of product homogenization, therefore, how to highlight the future product differentiation and functional advantages, conform to the trend of health, will be the focus of competition in the domestic beverage industry.
experts remind that the market fighting fierce, supervision can not lag behind, not only to product additives, packaging, publicity and other aspects of supervision, to prevent murky water fish, but also to guide consumers to form the correct sugar-reducing eating habits.
.