Some people ask, a certain ice cream brand recently launched low-sugar and low-fat ice cream, is this product worth buying?
Low-sugar and low-fat ice cream to eat, is it to pay IQ tax?
I replied: These two questions are not clear in one sentence. If you have some patience, allow me to answer the questions slowly, layer by layer. When you're done, you'll understand.
Layer 1: Why do you eat ice cream?
Because it's delicious.
Isn't drinking white water and drinking tea lower in sugar and low fat?
But they're not as tasty as ice cream.
Therefore, to make ice cream, first of all, to ensure that it is delicious, rather than first requiring low sugar and low fat.
Moreover, the premise of developing low-sugar and low-fat products must also be that the taste is more delicious. Even if it is not 100% delicious, it must be 70% or 80% delicious.
The second layer: how is the ice cream made delicious?
Because they add a lot of delicious ingredients, which contain a lot of fat and sugar.
What if I omitted both fat and sugar ingredients?
It's as bad as ice cubes.
What if I subtract from these high-calorie materials?
Its delicious taste is probably going to be discounted.
If you want to make ice cream delicious, you really need a lot of technical content.
Knowledge point 1
What are the additives in ice cream for?
Take a look at a piece of ice cream from the supermarket freezer and you'll see that there are many kinds of food additives. Like what:
Colorants are used to make the color look good, it may be a natural pigment, it may also be an artificial pigment, but not all colored ice creams use pigments, such as a brand of sea salt coconut ice cream because of the use of natural phycocyanin so blue.
Thickeners, usually some vegetable gums, or modified starches, they can make the taste more "content, when dissolved in the mouth, it feels less "thin soup and water", but pay attention to the distinction, starch has a similar effect, but it is not an additive.
An emulsifier that combines ingredients such as fat, sugar and water to give it a delicate and smooth taste.
Acidity regulator, can make the taste sour, sweet and sour after adding sugar.
Flavor, can make a certain flavor of ice cream characteristics of the aroma more obvious, more pleasant.
It's not because the company wants to fool you, but because if you don't add anything, the taste will be affected. In contrast, if you want to use less additives, you have to add more real materials.
Third Floor:
How much sugar, how much fat, how much protein is in the ice cream?
This depends on the nutrition facts list.
I looked at the products sold in supermarkets and found that ice cream products have a higher fat content, while those in popsicles are lower. After all, people expect ice cream products to have a rich taste similar to ice cream, and too little fat is not strong.
For example, fruity popsicles can have zero fat. However, its taste is more "water", and it cannot be compared with ice cream.
▲ Ingredient list and nutrient composition list of a popsicle
Zero fat, carb 18.4%
Fragrant cream ice cream or chocolate ice cream, which tends to have a fat content of 20% to 30%.
▲ Ingredient list and nutrition facts list of a chocolate ice cream:
Fat content 29.6, carbohydrate content 22.7
Some ice creams with lower fat, such as ice cream with mung beans, red beans, and glutinous rice as the main ingredients, have a relatively high carbohydrate content, because sugar and starch have to play the main role.
▲ Ingredient list and nutrition ingredient list of a mung bean ice cream:
Fat content 3.2, carb content 32.5
I looked at the ice cream products in a nearby supermarket, which ranged from 1.1% to 7.0% protein.
When eating ice cream, people may not think of supplementing with protein. But wouldn't it be better if you could enjoy the delicious food while also consuming some protein?
For example, one "Mei Li Milk Ice Cream" has a protein content of 7.0%, and another "Sea Salt Coconut Ice Cream" has a protein content of 6.3%, which is still very good, and has surpassed pure milk and plain yogurt (they need to contain at least 2.9% protein).
▲ The ingredient list and nutrition composition table of Mei Li milk ice cream are actually taken
Of course, milk ice cream has a much higher fat and sugar content than yogurt and milk, but compared with higher fat mousse cake, compared with cookies, and fritters and chips, it is not a low nutritional value food.
Because, in addition to sugar and fat, it is also necessary to consider that there are other micronutrients in it, such as calcium, potassium, B vitamins and vitamin AD. The addition of cheese and milk powder, while increasing fat, also adds these beneficial ingredients.
Knowledge point 2
Use nutrient density to select foods.
What I would like to recommend here is the concept of "nutrient density". It is defined as the ratio of the micronutrient content in a certain food to the caloric content in it.
For example, if you want to supplement calcium, then choosing foods with high calcium content and relatively low calories is the most ideal choice. With the same calcium content, yogurt and milk have a higher nutrient density than ice cream.
But conversely, choosing milk ice cream for the same calories is healthier than choosing mousse cakes, biscuits, and sweet drinks because they have less protein and lower calcium nutrient density.
So, from a nutritional point of view, milk ice cream is not the best choice, but it is not the worst choice.
Layer 4: Zero Sugar, Low Sugar and Reduced Sugar, Is It One Thing?
Knowledge point 3
Scientific understanding of sweeteners.
Sweeteners, the main varieties include sugar alcohols, such as xylitol, maltitol, erythritol, etc.; high-power sweeteners, that is, artificial sweeteners, such as cyclamate, saccharin (sodium), aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose; and natural sweeteners, such as steviol glycosides, monk fruit stetevia, etc
The structure of sugar alcohols and sugars is relatively similar, and most of the process properties of sugars can be realized.
Sugar alcohol sweeteners are derivatives of sugars, which have been developed to include sorbitol, mannitol, erythritol, maltitol, lactitol, xylitol and other different products, the sweetness of which is about 25% to 100% of sucrose. Sugar alcohol sweeteners provide less energy than sugar, do not cause a significant blood sugar reaction, and can significantly reduce the risk of tooth decay.
At the same time, there are more and more studies suggesting that synthetic sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame, and sucralose not only have taste defects, but also have adverse effects on appetite control, glucose tolerance and obesity prevention when consumed for a long time.
Knowledge point 4
Sugar-free, low-sugar and low-sugar, what are the criteria?
According to the mainland food nutrition labeling regulations, in order to be called sugar-free, low-sugar and reduced sugar, the compliance conditions are as follows:
Sugar Free:
Diet:
Sugar Reduction: At least 25% less sugar than comparable products.
Using a moderate amount of sweeteners to help achieve low sugar or reduce sugar is a feasible way, but it is not necessary to overuse the way of adding sweeteners to pursue the so-called "sugar-free". This reduces the risk of consuming too much added sugar while avoiding the possible adverse effects of a large amount of artificial sweeteners, while also tasting more naturally.
The fifth layer: sugar control, how much to control is reasonable?
The World Health Organization requires that added sugars be controlled within 50 grams, preferably within 25 grams.
There is no evidence that eating a few grams to a dozen grams of added sugar a day also poses health hazards.
For example, if a traditional version of ice cream weighs about 80 grams and its carbohydrate content is about 20 grams/100 grams, the total amount of sugar it can provide is about 16 grams.
If you eat one such ice cream a day instead of other sweet and sweet drinks, the intake of added sugars is still within a reasonable range, no more than 25 grams.
If you eat a low-sugar version with less than 5 grams/100 grams of sugar, then the sugar content of an ice cream is even lower, less than 4 grams, and there is no need to worry.
In contrast, if you drink a bowl (200 grams) of sugared soy milk, or a bowl of white fungus soup, to achieve a pleasant sweetness, you need to add 10% sugar, that is, 20 grams of sugar.
Therefore, there is no need to feel guilty about eating an ice cream without "zero sugar". The key is to control the total amount of all the desserts eaten throughout the day.
Layer Six: Low sugar or low fat, is it equal to low calorie?
The calories of a food depend on the amount of fat, protein and carbohydrates in it, as well as the total amount of food.
After all, ice cream can't be white water, and if sugar and fat are particularly low, there is no food value. Therefore, low-sugar products may not be low in fat content, and low-fat products may also have a lot of sugar.
Exactly how many calories there are, be sure to take a closer look at the nutrition facts list on the product label.
For example, for a clear ice cream product, 100 grams of protein, 3.0 grams of fat, 17.4 grams of carbohydrates, and 453 kJ (108 kcal) of total calories
▲Ingredient list and nutrient composition list of guava coconut ice cream
However, this does not mean that the calorie of this ice cream is 453 kilojoules. Because this ice cream is only 78 grams, not 100 grams. Its actual calorific value should be
453*0.78 = 353 kJ = 84 kcal
Knowledge point 5
What is the "one copy" on the Nutrition Facts List?
Most products are labeled with "100 grams" as the standard. However, some products' nutritional ingredient lists are marked with "one copy", and one part may be 50 grams, 60 grams, 80 grams, etc.
This kind of labeling is more convenient for consumers, but when compared with other products, if you don't look closely, you may think that its caloric value is particularly low. Therefore, the data must be converted into a content of 100 grams to be fairly compared.
For a 62-gram ice cream, the carbohydrate content in one serving is 15.7 grams, but when converted to 100 grams, it is actually 25.3 grams.
▲Ingredient list and nutrition facts list of 62 grams per serving)
What should I do if I want to reduce the calorie value of ice cream?
Replacing sugar with sugar alcohols and other ingredients is technically easier to achieve. However, if you want to replace the satisfaction and aroma produced by fat, it is very difficult, like the guava coconut ice cream mentioned above, using fruits with rich pulp fiber to provide a dense taste similar to fat, with the rich flavor of the fruit, it is also a good practice.
Which one you need to choose depends on the specific needs of consumers, whether they care about sugar or fat; whether they care about calories, or care about taste, or both.
Layer Seven: Sugar Reduction and Fat Reduction Products, Is IT AN IQ Tax?
Knowledge point 6
Nutritional environment theory believes that whether or not each person can eat a nutritionally balanced meal is closely related to the food environment in which he lives.
If people can't buy nutritious foods in supermarkets and community food stores, or if there are no nutrition labels on foods that make people have no choice, it is difficult to achieve healthy eating even with this awareness.
In order to improve the nutritional environment, the primary responsibility of enterprises is to produce various types of products for consumers to choose from, including products with relatively good nutritional value. In particular, it is necessary to take into account the high-knowledge and high-awareness consumer groups that pay more attention to health, and actively develop products that reduce sugar and fat and reduce calories without seriously affecting the taste quality.
The second responsibility of the enterprise is to truthfully inform consumers of the raw materials of the product and the nutritional content of the product through food labeling. Product labeling must comply with nutrition labeling regulations, with truthful data and without misleading publicity.
After the company has honestly provided relevant information, it is up to the consumer to decide which product to choose.
Ice cream is a product that is originally a pleasant consumer product. The purpose of eating it is not to increase daily nutrient intake, nor is it to lose weight and lose weight. But if it can bring some nutrients, or reduce a little sugar, fat, can reduce the mental stress generated when eating, naturally not a bad thing, should not be criticized for this.
Therefore, ice cream products that reduce sugar and fat cannot be called IQ tax.
Some consumers say that it is estimated that it is better to eat without reducing fat or sugar...
That's true. A little more cream, cheese and chocolate ingredients, a fuller aroma and a more enjoyable taste are something to be expected. However, under the premise of replacing white sugar or fructose syrup with sugar alcohols, slightly reducing the sugar content should have less impact on taste.
Since you just eat for the sake of good food, there is no special need to control sugar and fat, and you do not eat other sweets every day, then you can choose the traditional conventional model. Since you are pursuing delicious food, you should carry out good food to the end.
In short, the ice cream that reduces sugar and fat, whether to buy it or not, the decision is entirely on the side of the consumer.
Of course, if you don't eat ice cream in the summer, it is also very healthy to drink only boiled water, light tea, milk, yogurt, and eat fresh fruit every day...
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Fan Zhihong_Original Nutritional Information
He is a scientist at the Beijing Food Nutrition and Human Health High-tech Innovation Center
Director of the Chinese Nutrition Society
Director of China Association for Health Promotion and Health Education
The China Association for Science and Technology employs chief experts in nutrition science communication
Ph.D. in Food Science, China Agricultural University
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