For a long time, brown sugar has been considered by most women to be a good product for blood replenishment and menstruation.
What does it do to achieve the tonic effect, and is this effect obvious? With doubts, Consumer Reports sent 15 hot brown sugar products on the market to a third-party testing agency.
How to measure the effect of blood replenishment?
From a scientific point of view, the loss of blood is actually the loss of iron. Because the blood contains a large amount of hemoglobin, it is a red iron-containing protein, which accounts for about 70% to 80% of the total iron content of the human body. "Blood replenishment" is essentially equivalent to "iron supplementation".
Rely on brown sugar alone to supplement iron, be careful of calories "bursting"
Test data show that the iron content of the 15 brown sugars varies from 1.5 mg/kg to 6.4 mg/kg.
Among them, Schucomann brown sugar, Swire brown sugar and Wang Kum Kee original old brown sugar had a higher iron content of 6.4mg/kg, 4.7mg/kg and 4.4mg/kg, respectively. In addition, the iron content of Xiaozhong Workshop, Shou Quanzhai, Gufang, Qingyuantang, Hushengtang and Ganjuyuan is low, and each model is below 2.0mg/kg.
What does this iron content data mean?
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2013 Edition), the recommended daily intake of iron for normal adult women is 20 mg. Menstruating women, on the other hand, need to supplement with more iron because they lose a lot of blood.
Experts pointed out that for women with anemia, brown sugar can provide very limited iron, and it cannot be used as the main way to treat anemia.
Based on the highest iron content of Schucoman brown sugar (6.4 mg/kg) in this test, normal adult women need to consume 3.1 kg of this brown sugar per day to meet the recommended daily intake of iron.
Therefore, it is obviously not a wise choice for us to rely on brown sugar alone to supplement iron. Eating 100g of brown sugar to get less than 1mg of iron, eating a lot of it will only make your calories "explode".
Healthy people can supplement iron through a variety of diets, such as appropriate consumption of duck blood, pig blood, pork liver, foie gras, lamb, prawns, hairy crabs and other foods. Special groups of people should consult the professional advice of a doctor for effective iron supplementation.
Some brown sugar has a certain calcium supplementation effect
Although the blood supplement (iron supplement) effect of brown sugar is very small, the test unexpectedly found that brown sugar has a certain calcium supplementation effect.
The data show that the calcium content of 15 brown sugars ranges from 38.4 mg/kg to 370.1 mg/kg. Among them, the calcium content of Swire Brown Sugar, Gusong Pure Brown Sugar and Wang Jinji Original Old Brown Sugar is above 300mg/kg, highlighting a certain calcium supplementation effect.
【Special Notice】: The test results and mentioned brands in this report are only responsible for the test samples and do not represent the quality status of the same batch or other models of products.