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Extremely Unhealthy Sweetener? Experts Advise to do Without it Completely – That’s What’s Behind it

Many people like to use sugar alternatives. Sweeteners are particularly popular. But appearances are deceptive: despite their good reputation, sweeteners harbor many health risks.

Risks of sweeteners: Experts advocate complete avoidance

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the German Society for Nutrition (DGE), less than ten percent of the daily energy intake should consist of sugar. Many people often consume far more sugar than they should and switch to artificial sweeteners, which, at first glance, appear to be a good alternative. But the chemical sugar substitute can cause unpredictable physical problems. Experts like Dr. Mark Hyman, doctor and best-selling author of the New York Times, even advocates a complete avoidance of any sweeteners.

Sweeteners are synthetically produced or natural substitutes, for example from sweetener plants for sugar, which are a lot sweeter. Sweeteners do not provide any food for caries-causing bacteria because they are not metabolized by the oral flora. Aspartame, stevioglycosides and sodium cyclamate are examples of sweeteners found in foods. Sweeteners have no or few calories, but taste about 10 to 13,000 times sweeter than sugar. Sounds very tempting, but is not really healthy.

However, sweeteners are very often confused with sugar substitutes. Sugar substitutes are – in contrast to sweeteners – suppliers of energy. They contain 2.4 calories per gram, making them about half as “heavy” as sugar. The substitutes and also sweeteners are well suited for diabetics because, unlike sugar, they do not affect insulin and blood sugar levels.

That’s why sweeteners are so bad for you

Researchers looked at the consumption of low-calorie sweetened beverages in a study that found it was associated with higher total energy and sugar intake in children. Using 7,026 children who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey over five years, the researchers were able to evaluate nutrient intake from sweetened beverages compared to water consumers.

According to this study, sweetener consumption was associated with more total calories and added sugars. Based on this finding, researchers question the benefits of low-calorie sweetened beverages for weight management in children and adolescents. Large amounts of sweetener can thus change the entire metabolism and promote unfavorable weight gain, even if the sweetener itself contains almost no calories.

Since the composition of the intestinal bacteria changes as a result of the artificial sweeteners, weight gain can occur. Regular consumption of sweeteners also increases the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. Sweeteners are also laxative, addictive, and can trigger migraines and skin rashes. And they are also suspected of being carcinogenic. So it seems the healthier option is to stick with “real” sugar and reduce sugar intake to a healthy amount.

Omit sweetener: These delicious sugar alternatives are available

While most properties of sweeteners are certainly compelling, over-consumption can lead to serious side effects. Therefore, you should not overdo it with the low-calorie sweetness and rather use natural sweeteners such as agave syrup or honey.

For many foods that contain sweeteners instead of sugar, you might choose the sugar variant, such as herbal candies or soft drinks. If you generally feel like eating something sweet and also want to do something good for your health, then simply grab an apple or a banana instead of unhealthy snacks or use agave syrup, maple syrup or coconut blossom sugar instead of sweeteners.

Other foods that do not contain any harmful sweeteners and still taste sweet:
dates
raisins
honey
dried fruit
bananas

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health

Mother Juices: What’s Behind It – And How Healthy Are They?

Fruit juices are known to provide you with many healthy nutrients. This also includes the so-called mother juices: They are made from acidic fruit varieties.

Worth knowing about mother juices

In principle, all fruit and not-from-concentrate juices, including mother juice, have a fruit content of 100%. This is even regulated by law: apart from the fruit, there must be no other ingredients in a fruit juice.

This type of juice is called mother juice because it comes from the first pressing. It is therefore often referred to as pure direct juice. The fruits are pressed once and briefly and gently pasteurized so that most of the natural, healthy ingredients are retained. The same applies to fruit juices and other not-from-concentrate juices: These too are only pasteurized gently and briefly, so that the loss of nutrients is minimised.

The advantage of this production method is that you can benefit from all the nutrients and vitamins of the fruit to the maximum. Depending on the variety, the fruits contain numerous antioxidants, secondary plant substances, vitamins A, E, C, B1, B2 and B6 as well as the minerals phosphorus, magnesium and iron. These ingredients strengthen your immune system, can prevent nutrient deficiencies, have an anti-inflammatory effect and protect against free radicals. Currently there are no studies that prove this effect of the mother juices; however, you can be sure of the many healthy ingredients.

Mother Juices – derived from acidic fruit varieties

Mother juices are derived from acidic fruit varieties. These include, for example, cranberries, cranberries, elderberries, pomegranates, sea buckthorn or black currants. Not everyone likes the taste of pure mother juices: They usually taste a bit more sour and bitter than well-known fruit juices. It is a good idea to dilute the juices slightly with water or process them in a smoothie or jelly.

A mother juice is also often the basis for a fruit nectar, often with the addition of water, sugar or honey for a sweeter taste. Due to the positive effect on health, it makes sense to integrate fruit juices and thus also mother juices into your diet and to enjoy them from time to time.

Tip: When buying, you should pay attention to organic quality; This is the only way you can be sure that no chemical plant products were used during cultivation.

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Food

Black Food: What’s the Truth About Black Food?

Black Food is the name of a new nutritional trend that is increasingly focusing on black foods. What’s up with this trend? But above all: What is inside the black foods?

black food? If you first think of black currywurst with black fries or black burgers in brown bread – you’re actually right.

It actually started with a charred hot dog in a black bun, the photo of which went viral on social media. There is now hardly any food that someone has not already colored black – and not necessarily by charring.

What makes food black?

Black food is primarily about the food being black. Regardless of how they got their black coloring. Because the color can be “grown up” in a natural way or added later. The most common colorings in black foods are:

Anthocyanins: These are natural plant pigments that make fruits and vegetables appear blue, purple, or almost black. Blackberries, for example, contain a lot of anthocyanins.
Iron(II) gluconate or iron(II) lactate: Both substances have an oxidizing effect and cause foodstuffs treated with them to turn a deep black. Cheap black olives are colored like this, you can recognize the subsequent coloring by additive numbers such as E579
Sepia: The dark “ink” of the squid is actually used to ward off enemies and has long colored Italian pasta specialties black.
activated charcoal
In addition to these commonly used food colorings, there are exotic variants. For example, the charcoal from burned coconuts, but from a chemical point of view this is nothing more than carbon.

What are the health benefits of black foods?

Black food is said to be healthy, so healthy in fact that even ice cream that’s been dyed black is advertised as “healthier.” Black foods are also said to detoxify, be good for the kidneys, prevent cancer and be particularly rich in vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals.

Activated charcoal black food

Foods colored with activated charcoal are the cheapest of the newfangled black foods. Activated charcoal is an approved food coloring (E number E153) and is added to many industrially produced foods to “pretty color” them. For example, jams and jellies with little fruit content

This does not make any product healthier – only blacker. Because activated charcoal is able to bind toxins, black food foods colored with charcoal are often advertised with additional benefits such as “detoxifying” or “detox”. However, a healthy body is already well equipped with the liver and kidneys to eliminate harmful substances.

The small amount of activated charcoal in black food doesn’t really matter – and nobody has to “detox” and “purify” anyway. In addition, activated charcoal is mainly used to make foods that are unhealthy per se “black & healthy”: French fries, currywurst and burger buns are not healthier if they are colored “raven black”.

ferrous gluconate and ferrous lactate

Olives and other foods colored black with ferrous gluconate or ferrous lactate do not confer any additional health benefit from the color. Olives colored black with ferrous gluconate (E579) are colored because they were not given time to ripen and were harvested green. You can easily recognize this by the fact that the core is still light green.

Iron(II) lactate (E585), like iron(II) gluconate, is only approved in the EU as a coloring for olives, but it is very well absorbed by the body and is therefore used to fortify foods with iron. This cannot then be recognized from the colour, because iron(II) gluconate is actually green-yellowish, the black color of the olives is only caused by oxidation. Here, too, the black color does not bring any added health value.

Natural dye sepia

Sepia, also known as “squid ink”, has now also established itself as a natural coloring agent for pasta in German kitchens. In homeopathy, sepia is used, for example, for gynecological disorders or diseases of the respiratory tract. However, there is still no scientifically proven knowledge on this.

Anyone who does not suffer from gynecological disorders or other diseases that Sepia helps against in homeopathy has no health benefit from the consumption of squid ink. On the contrary: the cream sauce that is often served with black pasta is not particularly healthy.

Incidentally, sepia does not have an E number, but it must be included in the list of ingredients because it can cause allergies.

Black food thanks to anthocyanins

Anthocyanins belong to the flavonoids, are secondary plant substances and are therefore fundamentally healthy. The more flavonoids and healthy phytochemicals we take in, the better. Anthocyanins are not only responsible for the almost black coloring of fruit and vegetables, but also for the dark red color of cherries, grapes and hibiscus blossoms.

However, there are over 8,000 flavonoids, and all of them have been said to have antioxidant effects. They all fundamentally reduce the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases – regardless of their color. So there is no point in limiting yourself to black fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are inherently healthier than junk food and highly processed foods.

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Food

Konjac Noodles: What’s in the Konjac Root?

Noodles made from the konjac root are advertised as an unrepentant indulgence. Unfortunately, they are not sustainable. Find out here what exactly the konjac root and konjac noodles are all about.

What is Konjac Root?

The konjac root is the tuber of the devil’s tongue, a plant species from the genus Titan Arum that grows in Asia. The konjac root is used there as a thickening agent in confectionery or for the preparation of a tofu-like mass or noodles. It has become known to us primarily for its appetite-suppressing and satiating properties.

On the one hand, the root has hardly any calories, but on the other hand it has an enormous swelling capacity. This is because it consists of about 40 percent so-called glucomannans. Glucomannans are soluble dietary fibers that can bind a lot of water, but have no nutritional value themselves. In the intestine, they absorb liquids and swell up as a result. They fill the stomach considerably and thus promote a long-lasting feeling of satiety and intestinal activity without increasing the energy content of the food, the calories.

That is why konjac noodles are popular

Konjac noodles, konjac rice, konjac lasagne sheets – all these products have very little to do with classic pasta or ordinary rice, because they are not made of grain. Instead, they are made from water, konjac root flour and a stabilizer such as calcium hydroxide, which the manufacturer claims is harmless.

As a result, foods made from the konjac root are…
Low in calories: 100 grams of konjac noodles contain just about eight to 14 kilocalories. Normal pasta, on the other hand, has about 138 calories.
carbohydrate-free: Konjac noodles have no carbohydrates. 100 grams of ordinary cooked pasta has about 25 grams of carbohydrates.
Low-fat: Konjac noodles only have 0.2 grams of fat per 100 grams. But normal pasta is also healthy with 0.9 percent fat in terms of fat content.
very rich in fibre: the konjac flour used has a large portion of glucomannan, which fills you up quickly but pleasantly and stimulates digestion. Glucomannan is also said to be able to improve blood lipid levels (study), but whether this property also applies to konjac noodles has not been confirmed.
Gluten-free: Most types of pasta are made from grains containing gluten, such as wheat or spelt, and are therefore not suitable for people with celiac disease. Konjac noodles, on the other hand, can also be enjoyed by people with gluten allergies without any problems.
Vegan: There are no eggs in the konjac noodles. But ordinary durum wheat pasta is also egg-free.
quick and easy to prepare: the konjac noodles come pre-cooked from the pack. All you have to do is wash them off and warm them up. Because they are quite tasteless, you can process them in many ways and create a wide variety of pasta dishes from them.
These properties make konjac noodles very interesting as a pasta alternative for many. Figure-conscious people appreciate the feeling of fullness that sets in quickly, athletes are happy about the low fat content, people with celiac disease are happy about the lack of gluten, and people who are stressed out about the time are happy about the quick preparation method.

Konjac noodles: why they are not a sustainable alternative

Enjoying as much pasta as you want without worrying about calories – that sounds like the dream of many connoisseurs. But when it comes to sustainability, the konjac pasta leaves a lot to be desired.

The devil’s tongue, from which the flour for the pasta alternative is made, is native to East Asia, Japan, western and central China. So the raw material travels a very long way before we find konjac noodles on the local supermarket shelves. With their high consumption of energy and resources, such food transports are a major burden on the environment. On the other hand, wheat and spelled grow for conventional pasta in Germany and Europe.

Pasta made from local grain also has another decisive advantage over konjac noodles: it consists of more than indigestible fiber. Although whole grain pasta has calories and carbohydrates, it also offers vegetable proteins, vitamins B and E, minerals such as iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium and potassium, phytochemicals and fiber. Even conventional pasta fills you up and can be part of a calorie-conscious, healthy diet if you enjoy lots of vegetables and light sauces with it.

Another environmentally friendly alternative to konjac noodles, which is also low in calories and low-carb, are vegetable spaghetti, which you can make yourself from vegetables using a vegetable peeler or spiralizer. Because they are also rather tasteless, you can season them with a wide variety of delicious sauces, herbs and spices.

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Food

Theine and Caffeine: What’s the Difference?

Is there a difference between theine and caffeine? We explain where the active ingredient theine occurs, how it works and what you need to know about it.

What is thein?

Coffee contains the active ingredient caffeine and black or green tea contains the active ingredient theine – at least that’s what many believe. But it is now known that the active ingredient in tea is identical to the active ingredient in coffee. So both drinks contain caffeine.

Caffeine is not only found in coffee beans. In addition, it is also found in numerous other plants – the tea bush, the mate bush, guaraná and the kola nut.

Theine and caffeine are basically the same substance. However, caffeine in coffee and tea works differently. This is because caffeine is released differently in coffee and tea.

Theine and caffeine: 6 important facts

If you like drinking tea and coffee, you’ve probably noticed that the two drinks have different effects. There are various reasons for this. We have summarized six important facts about the effects of caffeine (theine):
The caffeine content in the coffee bush, tea bush and mate bush is different and also varies from plant to plant.
A cup of tea contains less caffeine (theine) than a cup of coffee. This is due to the dose: You brew significantly fewer tea leaves for a cup of tea than coffee beans for a cup of coffee.
The caffeine content in tea is related to its brewing time. In black and green tea there are about 20 milligrams of caffeine in 100 milliliters of water after one minute and about 33 milligrams after five minutes.
Tea has a calming effect. The longer the tea steeps, the more tannins are released. These have a calming effect on digestion.
L-Theanine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in tea. It’s supposed to be relaxing. L-theanine is not found in coffee.
Various antioxidants are contained in the tea. These can trap free radicals in our body and thus protect us from diseases. In addition, they should cause a slow and even absorption of caffeine in the blood. Theine (caffeine in tea) should therefore act less quickly, but the invigorating effect should last longer.

Are there health risks from tea and coffee?

How much caffeine or caffeine you can consume per day varies from person to person. If you are unsure, consult your doctor.

Make sure you prepare your tea correctly. Prepare it with boiling water and do not leave it for several hours. This will prevent germs from forming in the tea.

Always pay attention to organic quality when buying tea and coffee. Because conventional types of tea and coffee can be contaminated with pollutants. In 2018, the consumer magazine Markt found high levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in various types of tea, for example. This drug is suspected of causing liver cancer.

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Food

Black Garlic: What’s Behind The “Black Garlic” Trend

Black garlic is touted as the culinary delicacy in some delicatessens. In addition to the unique taste, “Black Garlic” is also said to be extremely healthy. We’ll tell you what’s up.

Black garlic – what is it?

Black garlic is not a separate plant species, but ordinary white garlic (Allium sativum). The bulb gets its black color from a special fermentation process.

To produce black garlic, it is exposed to a temperature of 60 to 80 degrees for several weeks at a high humidity of 80 to 90 percent. This fermentation process is often used in food production and is responsible for turning garlic black.

Incidentally, black garlic has long been popular in Asian cuisine. Now he is penetrating more and more into the European market.

Taste and uses of Black Garlic

Black garlic is mainly advertised because of its extraordinary taste: in terms of taste, it has very little to do with ordinary garlic. Instead, the Black Garlic comes up with sweet and sour nuances of liquorice, balsamic vinegar and plum compote. The consistency is soft, almost jelly-like.

You can use the black garlic in many different ways: it goes well with pasta and rice dishes, dishes with meat and fish, but also various salads. It is also well suited for marinades. Thanks to its unusual appearance, Black Garlic is also a great garnish.

The big advantage: Black garlic does not produce the typical garlic-like bad breath and – unlike fresh garlic – does not have a pungent taste.

Black garlic is so healthy

It seems like a marketing gimmick that the industry wants to sell us the Black Garlic as even more healing. But actually: numerous studies have now researched how and why black garlic is so healthy.

The health-important ingredient allicin is hardly present in black garlic, as it has been converted into antioxidant compounds by fermentation. These include bioactive alkaloids and flavanoids.
The antioxidant effect of black garlic is significantly higher than that of normal garlic.
In addition, black garlic is considered anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-allergic. Black Garlic can also be more effective than its usual form in type 2 diabetes.
Since the fermented garlic also contains fewer fructans, it is also easier on the stomach and intestines.

A culinary delicacy with a poor eco-balance?

Compared to garlic in its usual form, black garlic has a number of advantages: it is easier to digest, can be used in many ways, does not cause bad breath and also has health potential. You should have tried it at least once because of its very special aroma and taste combination alone.

In addition to all the good aspects, we only see the downside of black garlic in its eco-balance: The Black Garlic offered in this country mostly comes from southern Spain, sometimes even from China or Korea – even though garlic is native to us. Due to the long transport routes, you should make sure that you use regional providers if possible.

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