How Much Do You Know About Glucose Syrup And Solid Syrup In Milk Powder?

There are many sugars in milk powder, such as lactose, granulated sugar, glucose syrup, corn syrup, maltodextrin, etc. In order to make you better understand these ingredients, we will continue to explain them line by line. Today we are going to look at the source of sugar syrup, how to use it and how to choose milk powder.

About the syrup

Syrup, belongs to “free sugar”, the concept of free sugar is more extensive, including two categories, one is used in the food processing process added sucrose (sugar), fructose, fruit syrup, glucose, etc., the other is naturally present in honey, syrup, fruit juice and concentrated fruit juice sugars.

Of course, lactose, which naturally exists in milk, is not a free sugar and is an important carbohydrate that provides energy and nutrition for infant growth and development.

The syrup added in milk powder is mainly grape syrup and corn syrup.

Glucose syrup: mixed syrup containing glucose obtained from starch or starch as raw material by enzymatic hydrolysis, acid hydrolysis, enzymic acid hydrolysis or acid enzymatic hydrolysis.

Corn syrup: corn starch as raw material, through a variety of enzymatic hydrolysis to maltose syrup.

In other words, glucose syrup, corn syrup comes from starch. Starch is a large carbohydrate made from the polymerization of glucose, which is stored in plants (corn, potatoes, wheat, etc.).

Application of syrup in milk powder

Because of its moderate viscosity, anti crystallization, low freezing point, syrup is often used in a variety of food, such as canned food, jelly, fudge, bread, pastry and other food. These added sugars, which are widely used in food, are not banned from milk powder but have earned the designation of “sensitive ingredient”. The main reason is that syrup, as a carbohydrate, can provide glucose for human body to digest and absorb easily, but can improve the consistency, sweetness and taste of milk powder.

In addition, in the current national standard for infant formula milk, the preferred carbohydrate should be lactose, lactose and glucose polymer, and paragraph 1 milk lactose content is 90% or higher, 2, 3, paragraph, though not rules, but in the new national standard (draft) for further adjustment, the standard of the requirement 2 period of lactose content in milk powder 90% or more, The lactose content of 3 section milk powder is ≥50%. Lactose is a kind of sugar existing in milk, which is beneficial to the growth and development of infants, and its sweetness is suitable for the taste of infants.

Therefore, milk powder without adding sugar, syrup and other sugars can be simply understood as “lactose milk powder”. But part of the baby lactase secretion is insufficient or low activity, the ability to digest lactose is limited, the food needs to avoid lactose, at this time can eat “lactose free milk powder”, also known as diarrhea milk powder, to improve lactose intolerance. At this point, glucose syrup, corn syrup and other sugars can replace lactose, providing basic energy guarantee for infants and young children.

The sweetness of the syrup

As sugar, mothers are most concerned about its sweetness. To understand how sweet syrup is, we can use the sweetness of white granulated sugar (sucrose) as the benchmark (relative sweetness is 1), as follows:

Sucrose: relative sweetness 1

Lactose: relative sweetness 0.16~0.27

Glucose syrup: relative sweetness 0.7

Corn syrup: 0.46 relative sweetness

It can be seen that the relative sweetness of lactose is low, and the relative sweetness of glucose syrup and corn syrup is high, especially glucose syrup.

0-3 years old is the development of the baby’s taste buds, sweet stimulation may affect the baby’s preference, develop the habit of partial food, picky food. Long-term intake of foods containing high levels of free sugars (including supplementary foods, snacks, etc.) may lead to dental caries, obesity and other health problems.

Reducing sugar intake has always been an issue advocated by major nutrition organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) released guidelines on sugar intake for adults and children in 2015. For both adults and children, free sugar intake is recommended to be controlled below 10% of total energy, and it is better to further control it below 5%.

In the 2016 edition of the Dietary Guide for Chinese Residents, supplementary food feeding for babies aged 7 to 24 months is advocated as “supplementary food does not add condiments, and the intake of sugar and salt should be reduced as far as possible”, that is, supplementary food should maintain the original taste, without adding salt, sugar and stimulating condiments, and keep light taste. Light flavor food can improve infants’ acceptance of different natural food flavors and reduce the risk of picky eating. Light flavored foods also reduce salt and sugar intake in infants and young children, and reduce the risk of childhood and adult obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Suggestions on choosing milk powder

Therefore, if you want to choose milk powder, you can look at the list of ingredients. In addition to special powder, try to choose all lactose, that is, do not add additional free sugar (such as sugar, glucose syrup, etc.) milk powder.

According to the rank of raw materials in the ingredients list, we can also roughly judge the proportion of added sugar. The higher the rank is, the higher the content is. This should be paid attention to when comparing various milk powder.

Of course, there is no need to talk about “sugar” color change, the baby will still be exposed to a lot of sugar in the daily diet, such as some fruits (apples, pears, grapes, cantaloupe, etc.) in the sugar content is not low.

Therefore, the milk powder that has been selected contains syrup/syrup solids and other added sugars. When the baby is accustomed to drinking, it is not necessary to deliberately replace the milk powder. For the baby with a bad stomach, the gastrointestinal stimulation brought by milk transfer will more affect the nutrition absorption of the baby.

But should pay more attention to in the daily diet, some fruit and high sugar snacks, cakes, sweets, drinks, candied fruit, etc.) want to eat less as far as possible, and pay attention to see some food labels of processed food, from ingredients can check food labels to the extra sugar, such as sugar, sucrose, maltose, fructose syrup, juice concentrate, glucose, honey, etc.

Conclusion

Glucose syrup and corn syrup are widely used in food, which have the function of thickening, adjusting sweetness and taste. If in the selection of milk powder, sugar, syrup and other added sugars belong to the minus items, you can choose to avoid. If the milk powder is drinking contains such ingredients, the baby also drinks more adapt, do not have to deliberately replace the milk powder, but need to pay attention to reduce the intake of free sugar.