How can drinking milk tea be healthier?
"China News Weekly" reporter / Peng Danni and Qiu Guangyu
Issued in the 983th issue of China News Weekly on February 1, 2021
Two or three o'clock in the afternoon is the most sleepy time of the day after lunch.
The colleagues in the office have not yet fully returned to their positions, and they need something refreshing before entering the afternoon work.
It seems to be gearing up, and I already have the answer in my heart: make an appointment with a good colleague and get a cup of milk tea!
Tear off the plastic cover of the straw, and poke the cap with the tip of the straw accurately and forcefully. After taking a sip of the rich milk tea, with a few Q-ball pearls still chewing in your mouth, reopen the work page or office on the computer before the lunch break Software, all of a sudden, full of energy.
"It's still the same, the signature, hot drink, immortal grass, medium cup, no additional sugar." The colleague who was more "hesitating" said, the one who was worried that milk tea had no "soul" chose three-point sugar.
These options have alleviated people's health concerns. However, can the milk tea that can't be quit, and the sugar-less or sugar-free formula, can be healthy and happy?
Sugar is too "beautiful"
An "Why are human beings obsessed with milk tea?"
"The article reads: "The spread of milk tea is really like a biological invasion. Once it becomes popular in a certain place, it will spread in a large area within a short period of time and quickly conquer the stomachs and hearts of men, women and children." And everyone who finishes drinking milk tea People will generally show a state of contentment and deprivation.
The traditional milk tea drunk in Tibet and Mongolia in China is made from brick tea, fresh milk and salt. It is a daily drink for the nomads in the north.
But today people are holding a cup of sweet milk tea like Hong Kong style and Taiwanese style.
The sweetness in milk tea is one of the sources of its magical charm.
Try to imagine a cup of milk tea with no sweetness at all, how dull and soulless.
In the 1970s, a professor of oral biology named Jacob Steiner did an experiment. He fed sugar water to newborns who had not tasted breast milk. Then he wrote in the paper: "That expression is obviously very relaxed, hanging A satisfied smile. After the meal, he still licked his lips and sucked." He fed the newborn with bitter water again, and the newborn spat out.
Gu Zhongyi, director of the Beijing Dietitians Association and master of Tsinghua University School of Medicine, told China News Weekly that humans’ sweetness habits come from the reward mechanism in the evolutionary process.
There is not so much sugar in nature. In ancient times, humans needed some effort to obtain sugar, such as by picking fruits from trees. After a long time, the action of "eating sugar" became a source of energy or calories. A sign.
On the other hand, the human brain needs to use glucose to function. Naturally, people tend to prefer to eat things with sugar when they are lacking in energy.
American writer David Courtlet wrote in "Five Hundred Years of Addiction" that sugar is not only a flavoring agent, but also a placebo. It can stimulate the brain to release dopamine and make people feel happy.
Life is so "bitter", isn't it good to be sweet?
To be happy is to be happy, but excessive intake of sugar can also bring risks such as diabetes, obesity, and dental caries.
At the 2019 American Diabetes Association annual meeting, a slogan was put forward, "It is best to stay away from all sweet drinks, including sugar-free sweetener drinks."
The World Health Organization (WHO) mentioned in a guideline on sugar intake for adults and children that it is recommended that free sugars, namely monosaccharides and disaccharides that people add to food, and naturally found in honey, syrups, and fruit juices The intake of sugar in concentrated fruit juice is limited to 50 grams per day, and it is best to further limit it to 25 grams or less.
In August 2017, the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Committee tested 51 best-selling milk teas from 27 mainstream milk tea brands and found that the average sugar content of 27 milk teas with normal sweetness was 34 grams per cup, with the highest amount of sugar per cup. Cup of 62 grams.
After drinking a cup of milk tea, there is not much room left for the sugar intake of other foods.
In order to meet the demands of health, businesses have introduced more options. When ordering milk tea, you can choose not only half sugar, three-part sugar, or no sugar, but also sugar substitutes with lower calorie index and glycemic index.
However, in the Shanghai test, the "sugar-free" milk tea also comes with sugar. The average sugar content is 2.4 g/100ml, and the minimum is 1.2 g/100ml. A cup of milk tea is generally 400ml~500ml.
In November 2019, the Consumer Council of Fujian Province and the Consumer Council of Fuzhou City released the results of the "Comparative Test of Making and Selling Milk Tea". 40 samples were selected from 20 milk tea shops in Fuzhou. The samples were mainly targeted at the larger-selling pearl milk tea. The specifications of the purchased samples are all large cups.
It was found that the sugar content of 14 types of sugar-free milk tea exceeded the recommended intake.
There is no wife in the "wife cake", no milk in the milk tea
Some people make their own milk tea at home for health, but pour milk in the black tea, but it is not as fragrant as they want.
It needs to be like the shop, with a silky texture, even a little bit of sweetness, and it needs to be able to chew every bite, whether it is red beans, pearls, poppas, etc. to taste... These, you need to make a cup Speaking of the ingredients of milk tea.
However, in addition to sugar, these delicious temptations also have other health risks.
Nutritionist Tian Xue wrote on the "Dr. Lilac" platform that the silky taste of milk tea needs to be made with evaporated milk with a more intense milk flavour-evaporated milk is milk that has evaporated and doubled its concentration, so it is fat The content is higher and silkier, but it is not cheap.
Out of cost considerations, an industrial substitute is more commonly used in milk tea: non-dairy creamer (commonly known as creamer).
Open the takeaway platform, click on the menu of the "Little" milk tea shop, and find any milk tea. The following reads: Assam black tea with specially selected non-dairy creamer, prepared by the golden ratio.
Zhang Jiayu, a clinical nutritionist at Luhe Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, pointed out that the taste of non-dairy creamer is very similar to that of milk. It can reduce the amount of milk when used in milk tea. It can also make the taste more delicate, smoother and thicker without adding milk. One of the reasons why milk tea is delicious.
Non-dairy creamer is mainly made by artificial hydrogenation of vegetable oils such as soybean oil, instead of milk.
Fan Zhihong, an associate professor in the School of Food Science and Technology of China Agricultural University, is an expert who paid attention to milk tea nutrition earlier in China. In an interview with the media in 2018, she said that non-dairy creamer is hydrogenated vegetable oil, dextrin (starch hydrolysate), a small amount of sodium caseinate, and emulsification. A mixture of ingredients and other ingredients.
The biggest health hazard among the ingredients is fat, which is 20% to 75%.
Non-dairy creamer contains saturated fat and trans fatty acids at the same time.
With the advancement of technology, the trans fatty acids in non-dairy creamer are decreasing. Milk tea does not contain much of this ingredient, but it still increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia, and affects the development of children's nervous system. .
The Chinese Dietary Guidelines (2016) recommends that the daily intake of trans fatty acids should not exceed 2 grams.
The aforementioned Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission tested 51 best-selling milk teas and found that 4 trans fatty acids exceeded the standard, ranging from 3.7g to 6.2g.
In 2011, a paper published in "Food Science" "Determination of Trans Fatty Acids in Milk Tea by Gas Chromatography", the data was "really true", and it was found that the content of trans fatty acids in a cup of 300ml milk tea was 0.5g~2.7g between.
If the milk cover is added, the fat content will be more.
The milk cap is made by high-speed whipping of cream with a fat content of more than 30%. The flavor comes from cheese powder, sea salt and other additives.
Nutritionist Tian Xue pointed out that most milk tea shops do not use natural cream, but choose cheaper vegetable cream or even milk cover powder, and the ingredients return to processed vegetable oil products like non-dairy creamer.
So, you can simply remember: the more silky you want, the more fat you want.
The Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission's test results found that in 51 cups of milk tea, there are 6.3 grams of fat in 100 ml of milk tea with a milk cover, while the index of milk tea without a milk cover is only 2.7 grams.
The country recommends that adults consume less than 60 grams of fat per day. Among the milk tea samples selected in the previous study, a cup of milk tea with the highest fat content has a fat content of 41 grams.
Pearls, coconuts, taro balls and other small materials are generally made of tapioca starch with some wheat protein and food additives, which are equivalent to refined staple food, which is essentially sugar.
In addition, it should be noted that they often have added sugar, especially like red beans and puddings, which are also very high in sugar.
How to drink milk tea healthily?
In January 2021, a 22-year-old female teacher in Changsha, Hunan, who drinks an average of a cup of milk tea a day, was suddenly admitted to the ICU and was diagnosed as "diabetic ketoacidosis"-this is an acute complication of diabetes. She almost Drink a cup of milk tea every day.
There is a lot of similar news. A 28-year-old programmer drank three or four cups of milk tea a day. After losing 20 pounds in 3 months, he suffered from ketoacidosis...
Ruan Guangfeng, a nutritionist and master of nutrition and food safety at China Agricultural University, said that these cases themselves may have had high blood sugar and even diabetes problems. For normal healthy people, drinking milk tea normally should not cause diabetic ketoacidosis. .
However, even if they do not go to this extreme, people still hope to be more healthy and happy.
Some young people with a cup of milk tea in their left hand and a cup of Coke in their right hand have already begun a "half-sugarism" life; in Douban and Zhihu communities, topics such as "how to drink milk tea without getting fat" and "what are the consequences of drinking milk tea" A large number of people gathered below.
Xu Ying, an associate researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, taught how to make milk tea at home: brew black tea or make black tea bags to make a tea base, add fresh milk, sugar or honey.
It is best to use black tea, because black tea is a fully fermented tea with a more mellow taste.
If you must drink milk tea sold outside, choose milk tea with milk as the main raw material.
Tian Xue pointed out that if the place to buy milk tea is not boxed fresh milk, but a powder or liquid that is not packaged like milk, it is likely to be creamer.
Some nutritionists pointed out that to keep your eyes open, generally speaking, those labeled "latte", "alcohol milk" and "cow milk" are more likely to have added milk instead of non-dairy creamer.
Although there are pitfalls in "less sugar" and "no sugar", try to choose less than three cents of sugar, after all, a little less, a healthier.
High-fat, high-sugar snacks such as milk caps and red beans should also be avoided as much as possible.
In terms of time, Gu Zhongyi, director of the Beijing Dietitians Association and master of Tsinghua University School of Medicine, suggested that milk tea should be taken between meals, because this is when blood sugar is relatively low, or after strenuous exercise. It can supplement muscles with sugar, protein and electrolytes, and counteract the side effects of milk tea.
In addition, considering the caffeine in milk tea, be careful of its effect on sleep when drinking.
Zhong Kai, Ph.D. in Food Safety and Director of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center, believes that if you want to drink milk tea healthily, you don’t have to worry about the frequency of “drinking one cup a day” or “a cup a few days”. The important thing is to control the total sugar. Intake, you can’t drink milk tea and still worry about sweets such as ice cream, cakes, cookies, and chocolate.
"This is the overall control. While enjoying the sweetness, we must know how to choose. Our own dietary pattern is more important than (caring about) a specific food."
Gu Zhongyi said that in daily life, pay attention to eat more vegetables and fruits, ensure protein intake, maintain blood sugar balance, and control the total daily intake of sugar below 50 grams.
In addition, you can also change the taste when drinking sweet drinks to ensure richness. In addition to milk tea, you can also choose black coffee with low sugar content, pure tea soup, etc.
China News Weekly, Issue 5, 2021
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