We start the new year fulfilling the promise of writing a second part of the post “Without sugar, please” of possible alternatives to elaborate food without sucrose or “table sugar”, the most commonly used sweetener in the industrialized world.
So this year, my letter to Three Wise Men was:
Dear Three Wise Men:
As you know, the search for alternatives to sucrose is a topic of general interest for the food industry, consumers, researchers, health professionals, etc.
So this year, in which I’ve endeavored to find the way to develop healthier foods, I would like to ask you a very special sweetener. First of all, I would like that this sweetener could be at least as sweet as sucrose, colorless, odorless, noncariogenic and, of course, low-calorie. I would like the taste could clean and could not provide foreign flavors. I would like it could be water soluble and stable in both acidic and basic conditions and over a wide range of temperatures. Thinking in industry, it would be ideal that it could be processed in a similar way to the sucrose so that they could continue to use the same equipment. I would love that I could include it in any food and does not harm the shelf life of the final product.
As you are wise and very nice, I also want to be price competitive in relation to sucrose and easy to produce, store and transport. And to conclude, please the most important thing, is that it is SAFE for the entire population, I mean that it is not toxic and is metabolized without causing any unwanted alteration.
Thank you very much and if you fulfill what I ask you I promise that next year we will have the healthiest sweet coal in the world!
Love,
María
So, I sent my letter really excited and January 6 th, my children who always get up 8 o´clock in the morning, came to wake me up screaming: “Mummyyy!, the Three Wise Men have left a letter for you!” They were right, Wise Men had bothered to reply to my letter and this is what they said:
Dear María:
We have received your letter and we are very proud that from Cartif, you continue betting on a healthier diet but we have to tell you that, although we are magicians, we do not perform miracles. We are sorry to inform you that sweetener you describe in your letter does not exist. We can only advise you to use sweeteners you have intelligently, combine them between themselves to achieve a synergistic effect and thus use less amounts. If you are looking for low-calorie sweetener than sucrose, you can use intensive sweeteners and polyols although we know than there are controversies about their effects on health, which can give strange flavors and are labeled as additives.
We have received news of the “Stevia-boom” that is living in the food industry. If you have time, we’d like you to tell that although stevia (E-960) is plant-derived this does not mean that it is natural. Remember that all or nothing is poison and that the difference is in the dose.
Keep in mind that you can also use soluble fibers such as inulin and polydextrose although they provide less sweetness, ferment the intestinal microbiota acting as prebiotics, provide few calories and are not labeled as additives.
And before saying goodbye, as we all know that it has not won the lottery, still encouraging enterprises to develop products with a more balanced nutritional profile.
During these dates we usually toast at Christmas celebrations. The idea is to toast with a frothy drink, although sometimes we don´t know how to differentiate well one from the other, because we may confuse the terms “sparkling wine”, “cava” and “champagne”.
Cava and champagne are two types of sparkling wine that are elaborated in the same way, using the “champenoise méthode”, with similar grape varieties; besides, the first is elaborated in Spain and the second in France. The cava came out in the late nineteenth century while champagne dates from to the seventeenth century. Taking into account also that the climate and soil influence the quality of the grape, it’s very difficult to compare, even using the same method.
The French drink with bubbles was known in its beginnings as “champagne”, in honor of the champenoise method, but when Spain joined the EU, our French neighbors claimed their right in exclusivity, with which Spain could not elaborate this sparkling wine and also call it champagne, since it was only valid for sparkling wines produced in the region of Champagne; so it was decided to re-baptize this Spanish Designation of Origin as Cava Designation of Origin (D.O.), doing honor to the underground cellars or cavas, where these sparkling wines were elaborated.
Another difference is that to bottle up champagne, it can be mixed grapes of different vintages, compensating the quality by this way. When it is made only with one vintage, it is called “millesime” or “vintage“. By contrast, in the cava the typical thing is to bottle wines of a single vintage.
After explaining the terms, let’s focus on the Cava D.O., the Spanish.
Usually, D.O. refer to a particular region, for example, Ribera del Duero D.O., La Mancha D.O., even in non-wine products, such as Sierra de Cazorla Oils, Rincón de Soto Pears, Cabrales Cheese. The Cava D.O.is the only denomination of Spanish origin that puts the vinification method (the traditional champagnoise or second fermentation in bottle) to its geographical origin. Of course, it is not possible to label a sparkling Spanish with the “word” cava if it is not produced in officially recognized zones or wineries.
In the case of wine, the Cava denomination is the only denomination of Spanish supraterritorial origin, together with Rioja; this means that it exceeds the autonomic borders, although more than 98% of Cava’s total production comes from Catalonia, existing also production areas in municipalities in other regions.
The Regulation of the Cava Denomination and its Regulatory Council was approved by Order of 14.11.91 (BOE 20.11.91) and modified by different Orders. Prior to these Regulations, on February 27, 1986, the Order establishing the reservation of the “Cava” Denomination was published for quality sparkling wines produced by the traditional method in the region determined therein. But there were a number of sparkling winemakers that already made the production of wine base and/or cava prior to the entry into force of the Order of 1986. That is why, within the terms of reference of the regulations there are a number of exceptions that apply to certain wineries that may use the term “Cava D.O.” even if they occur in municipalities that are not among the 159 that are mentioned in the Regulation.
The curiosity is that of the wineries that are mentioned as exceptions there are one of Zaragoza, one of Girona, one of Valencia, one of Barcelona (regions included in the Cava Region), but there is one winery in the region of Burgos, one wine cellar of Aranda de Duero that, although it is not included in the Cava region, can elaborate sparkling wines by labeling them as Cava D.O. Strange, isn´t it?
Bad news for those people who love sweet food. In the Guideline: sugars intake for adults and children (2015), WHO recommends a reduced intake of free sugars to below 5% of total energy intake. A few 6 teaspoons of coffee/day (25 g), including sugar that provide food. And this also aims to for those who are thinking: “what are you telling me? I add honey”. Ok, but although it is very “natural”, the bitter reality is that more 80% of honey are also sugars.
The recommendation is further supported by evidence showing higher rates of dental caries when the intake of free sugars is above 10 % of total energy. This evidence shows those adults that increasing the amount of sugars in the diet is associated with a comparable weight increase. In addition, children who consume much more sugar are more likely to be overweight or obese than children with a low intake of sugar-sweetened.
United Kingdom announced that they were going to apply taxes to sugars sweetened beverages, which is an important topic of argument in Europe. In fact, Catalonia has taken the initiative, announcing it expected to establish the first regional assessment to sugars sweetened beverages during the next year. The rate will vary from them 8 cts/L, for drinks that contain 5 to 8 grams by 100 ml, and of 12 cts/L for which overcome it.
It is suggested that priority is given to food categories that commonly represent major sources of added sugars in Member States’ diets, that have a high public health impact or that are recommended to be consumed. According to these criteria, the relevant food categories where efforts should be focused on are:
In CARTIF, we know that reducing content of sugars in food is not easy because aside from sweetness, sugars also influence many product properties.
In bakery products, the role of sugar (sucrose) is very important because also influence many product properties such as the volume, texture and colour:
• Sugar increases gelatinization temperature of starch, so that air bubbles trapped lightening the texture. • It is a humectant (fixed water), this is important for conservation food e also affect its texture. • It works as a base for the fermentation of the yeast (for example when the bread is growing). • Sugar reduces freezing point, what is important to produce softer ice cream and to increase boiling point, fundamental for manufacturing of sweet. • Sugars are responsible of brown color development of many cooked food, through two processes: Maillard reaction and caramelization. • Sugars are important for the preservation of the food. High levels of sugar limit microbial growth and allow the food to last longer.
Now, we can already get an idea that reducing sugars is difficult from technological point of view and because changing its organoleptic characteristics. I will leave for a second part of this post how currently the products without sugars are developing.
There is no doubt that the snack food market is one of the strongest in the food industry, as is evidenced by its increasing market value. The snack category of food used to meaning snack chips, nuts and other traditional snacks (extruded snacks, popcorn, nachos etc.). However, the snack category is currently expanding to a large number of products that often has nothing to do with what we knew as snacks.
Historically, the snacks were something that we consumed around the daily main meals and that made us feel guilty about eating too much calories. We used to tell to our children “don´t fill up on snacks” before lunch or dinner. However, consumption of snacks has become increasingly common and is no longer between meals, is the food!.
Certainly, the culture of food is in constant motion (and who said for the better?) adapting to new lifestyles (cooking less, spend more time away from home) and in this new attitude there is room enough for more varieties of products that are easy to eat, with no-needed or very little preparation needed and a size easy to take away.According to Nielsen, the nowadays picture in Spain is that 45% of consumers regularly eat a snack as an alternative to one or more meals daily. Out of this value, 52 % do it for breakfast, 43 % on luch time and 40 % at dinner moment.
But consumes become more aware of nutritional values and claim for snacks to be healthy (or make us feel less guilty of eating out of the three-meals patron …) and to provide some health benefit. This is driving the food industry to spread the wings of innovation and create all kind of products rich in nutrients (proteins, vitamins, minerals, etc), fresh (or minimally processed, but packaged and ready to use), products high-density, low-glycemic index, low sugar, salt and fat among others. Here is a small sample of what is already in the market and what is coming soon:
Cereals, pulses, vegetables and fruits. The healthy snack category
The perception of the snack as something unhealthy and loaded with calories fades with launched products to cover this category. We found a wide variety of dehydrated fruits and vegetables (whether or not coated and with more or less sugar content), cereals of all shapes and colors, but mostly whole grains, either alone or mixed with goji berries, berries or dry fruits. Very present, the so-called “ancient grains” (chia, sorghum, quinoa, millet ..) cooked and ready to eat in bars or expanded products. Probiotics have migrated and are no longer in yogurt .
Now they are provided by fermented vegetable, or cereals, proteins, rice and chia with probiotic cultures. There is also a great tendency to germination process: cereal flour and sprouted legumes that are attributed interesting nutritional properties and are considered more easily digestible. And undoubtedly coming hard, combinations of cereals and vegetables or fruits and vegetables that add flavor, color and above all … nutrients, especially vitamins A, C E and D.
Dehydrated fruit and vegetable snacks
Pulses (white bean and pinto beans and lentils) and germinated cereals snacks
Fruit smoothies
Proteins: the meat snacks
Considering meat and fish as a protein source, different types of snacks and even innovation formats for consumption processed meat products are arising. Some examples are shavings of ham or corned beef, the so-called jerkies (dehydrated or marinated meat), seasoned with all kinds of spices and aromas.
Seasoned jerkies
And coming to snack market: meat sticks or bars. High protein content, veal, lamb, pork, bison… or insects.
Beef and vegetable and insect flour bars
Beef, chicken, pig, turkey, salmon or…bison bars
One size cured meat product
The dairy snack market
The dairy snack development is mainly focused on children. Thus, we find a wide variety of packaging formats such pouch or bag to take away. Healthy solutions for children through the development of dairy sticks (e.g. with the calcium content equivalent to a glass of milk, rich in protein and low in calories) but above all, innovation in the packaging presentation: single dose or ready for consumption, mainly at school break or at the playground time.
Small formats for cheese
It is very clear that the snack development offers great opportunities and there are many companies who see in the snackificationan opportunity to develop a palatable, healthy and ready to eat between meals or as a meal. Of course, according to the consumer criteria of what they percive as healthy, sustainable and what they are willing to pay for it. Of course, a reflection exercise must be done by the food industry to combine all these keys and consider that innovation happens largely by new or unusually ingredients and new production processes or technologies.
I tell you a real situation: Some years ago, I was chatting with a friend, when she looked at me very serious and said: I am not be able to lose weight! My doctor says that vegetables fattens me and the worst thing is that I love it! In that moment, those words seemed so absurd that I stayed quiet. Today, almost 20 years later, I have understood that my friend (a clear visionary) was speaking about genomic nutrition o personalized nutrition.
As we know, in the studies of dietary intervention, the results are the average value of all individual who have participated in the study. But, what would we find out if the results would be analyzed individually? In some people, a change in dietwouldn´t feel any effect (hypo-responders), others would feel a medium effect (normo-responders) and others would feel an effect greater than expected (hyper-responders).
During the last decades, we have passed from believing that diet produces the same effect in all individuals to accept that changes in diet are partly caused by the inter-individual differences in the human genome.
And that is precisely what we have lived in projects about “health food” developed in CARTIF. If we look back, we have more than 20 years designing functional foods and even collaborating in intervention studies in humans with the objective of verifying its effectiveness.
The project CENIT HIGEA (2007-2010) was undoubtedly the most important in the design of food with beneficial effects on health. In this project we feel ourselves as Dr. Brand on “interstellar: we were missing variables to solve optimally our trials of intervention.” We had not contemplated that the response to food varies depending on the specific characteristics of each person!
In fact, in a trial of intervention realized in HIGEA, we got that the consumption of a bar enriched in Omega-3 only produced an improvement in the lipid profile and the inflammatory pattern in men but not in women who participated in the study.
With these antecedents, in the year 2014 we began to work in the Project PRIMICIA. As its name suggests, for the first time, we get ingredients and healthy food (cookies, juices, jams, and pasta) bearing in mind the genetic profile of the population. It is necessary to mention that although the advances in the knowledge and technologies developed about of the human genome have been spectacular during the last years, the nutritional genomic is still a recent discipline and there is some confusion.
The project PRIMICIA is just the beginning in the industrial development of effective foodto improve the health of people in a personalized way. I propose complete the famous phrase “You are what you eat” saying: “You are what you eat because this determines which genes are expressed” and as I also have the gene “mother”, I would add: “so be careful!”
Extrusion technology allows to improve the nutricional, sensorial and fuctional properties of food. Find out what we are doing in CARTIF with pulses, in the International Year of Pulses, in this videoblog of our colleague Belén Blanco.
