For a long time, white sugar has been the most widely used sweetener raw material in the beverage and food industry. Because of the unparalleled advantages of white sugar, sweet taste, no odor residue after eating, and so on. Any artificial sweeteners on the market (such as saccharin, aspartame, cyclamate, acesulfame, socra, etc.) and natural sweeteners such as stevia from plants are not as good as white sugar. However, white sugar also has obvious disadvantages such as too high calories, easy to cause fat and tooth decay, and sugary beverages and foods that are prone to mildew when stored in a high temperature environment. Therefore, the amount of white sugar used in many beverages and foods is limited. In the past 10 years, a new type of sweetener known as "oligosaccharide" has been widely used in beverages and foods. In the 1990s, Japan and the United States successively developed a new type of hypoglycemic oligosaccharide product, Tagatose. According to the introduction, the sweetness of tagatose is very close to that of white sugar, and the taste is also good, but the calorie is extremely low. For example, the use of tagatose instead of white sugar in beverage products will not only cause consumers to increase blood sugar after eating, but also It can lower blood sugar, so it belongs to a natural hypoglycemic sweetener. Tagatose is especially beneficial for patients with hyperglycemia. Due to the rapid increase in the number of hyperglycemic patients in the United States and Japan and the large number of people with diabetes, tagatose is widely used in beverages and foods in Japan and the United States. In addition, the processing performance of tagatose is extremely excellent, not only soluble in water, but also stable in performance, and it is suitable as a sweetener in foods and drinks with different pH. Tagatose has been used as a sweetener in juices, vegetable juices, dairy products, carbonated beverages and other beverage products. It is understood that in Japan and the United States, Tagatose has been widely used in food and beverage as a novel "healthy sweetener". The annual sales volume has already exceeded 20,000 tons, and the artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, which used to be popular in the beverage industry. Sales are declining year by year.
An oligosaccharide, also known as an "oligosaccharide", refers to a low molecular weight polymeric sugar formed by the attachment of 2-10 glucose molecules through "glycosidic linkages". There are many kinds of oligosaccharides discovered so far, and the oligosaccharide products which have been applied to beverages and foods mainly include: oligomeric maltose, oligo-isomaltose, xylooligosaccharide, oligofructose, soybean saccharide, tag Sugar, mannan and trehalose, etc. Japanese researchers discovered in the 1980s that many oligosaccharides are not absorbed by the human digestive tract, but can be used by probiotics such as intestinal bacteria, especially bifidobacteria. Probiotics are an excellent health helper in the human body. They maintain the normal flora structure in the intestines and prevent various intestinal diseases such as diarrhea and intestinal cancer caused by bacteria (pathogenic bacteria). Western medical researchers confirmed the results of fecal tests on elderly people over 90 years old living in the Caucasus and Bulgarian mountains decades ago. These old people have more than 90% of the intestinal flora in their intestinal flora. It can be seen that Bifidobacteria is a microorganism that can make people live longer. American scholars recently reported that 90% of human immunity comes from the intestines. This shows the causal relationship between intestinal health and human health. After finding the causal relationship between bifidobacteria and longevity, foreign manufacturers began to systematically use oligosaccharide sweeteners instead of white sugar or other sweeteners for the production of beverages and foods in order to improve the health of the products. For example, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and other dairy countries will initially produce oligo-maltose and oligo-isomaltose and inulin (note: inulin is a natural oligosaccharide from chicory, not "stevia" inulin) The oligosaccharide raw material is added to the fermented yoghurt to increase the number of probiotics such as lactic acid bacteria or bifidobacteria in the yoghurt. Because the results of research by scholars in Japan and other countries show that the above probiotics can only be produced well on oligosaccharide medium. Although there is no accurate statistics, according to foreign food industry experts, the annual consumption of oligosaccharides, which are only used as sweeteners in yogurt, is as high as 100,000 tons per year. Its varieties mainly include oligofructose, oligomeric maltose and xylooligosaccharides.
Oligosaccharides are not only used in dairy products such as yogurt, but have also been widely used in other beverage products in recent years. For example, oligosaccharide sweeteners such as oligofructose, xylooligosaccharide and oligo-isomaltose are added to various fruit juice beverages that are sold in the United States. According to the manufacturer, the addition of oligosaccharides to juice drinks can greatly improve the health care function of the products. Such as enhancing human immunity, reducing blood fat and cholesterol levels and improving intestinal health. The addition of oligofructose can enable beverage products to achieve "high cellulose, low calorie", increase the number of bifidobacteria in the intestines, and a variety of health functions such as laxative.
In recent years, Japanese manufacturers have introduced a new oligosaccharide product, Trehalose. The product is white crystal, which is composed of two glucose molecules. It has low sweetness and is called trehalose because it was first extracted from seaweed. In fact, many plants contain trehalose. Most of the trehalose currently used in beverages and foods is artificially produced (enzymatically converted) because the cost of extracting trehalose from plant sources is too high. According to the latest foreign reports, among the various oligosaccharide products, only trehalose has extraordinary therapeutic effects such as anti-cell hypoxia, improving and regulating cell membrane function, treating myasthenia gravis and preventing Alzheimer's disease (Alzheimer's disease). And so on. In summary, trehalose is one of the best health food additives found to date. Since trehalose has the above-mentioned health care effects, many beverages and foods in the US and European markets, as well as chocolate and confectionery biscuits, are added with trehalose sweetener. According to the introduction of trehalose added to sports drinks, athletes can reduce the "high insulin blood phenomenon" and promote the body's high energy absorption. The addition of trehalose instead of white sugar to a refreshing beverage can significantly improve the product's taste, anti-caries and prevent common discomfort such as stickiness after drinking a drink.
Other oligosaccharide sweetener products for promising beverage products include: 1. Soy oligosaccharides, which are currently mainly from by-products of soybean processing. It is reported that soy oligosaccharides can lower blood lipids and promote intestinal tract. The number of probiotics such as bifidobacteria. Adding it as a sweetener to beverage products such as sports drinks, juices, yoghurts, and refreshing beverages and powdered beverages can enhance the health benefits of the latter. 2. Mannan, mainly from the extract of plant chicory and konjac flour, has artificial synthetic mannan products. According to reports, mannan can increase the permeability of cells and capillaries and promote the excretion of waste. Mannan has been used in some beverage products, but the scale is not large. 3. Xylo-oligosaccharide, which has a special cool taste, it is very suitable for use as a sweetener in beverages (especially in refreshing beverages). According to foreign medical media reports, xylooligosaccharides also have some pharmacological effects, such as prevention and treatment of otitis media and anti-caries. Therefore, beverage foods with xylooligo are especially suitable for children or elderly consumers because of its significant health benefits.
In summary, oligosaccharides have been widely used in various beverage and food products abroad as a main sweetener to replace products such as white sugar and artificial sweeteners. However, the production and application of oligosaccharides in China have just started, and there is a huge gap between the number of oligosaccharide product development varieties and beverage applications compared with developed countries. At present, the development trend of oligosaccharides in the international market is very strong. China plans to increase the development of oligosaccharides and make use of China's abundant oligosaccharide resources (such as soy oligosaccharides have not been widely exploited so far. It is a pity that chicory and konjac oligosaccharides and other oligosaccharide resources, in short, the development of new applications of oligosaccharides in the beverage industry is a good thing for the country and the people.