Have you tried the super popular "brown sugar milk" this summer? 3 things you should know before you eat!

The trendy summer drinks change every year. In previous years, they were emerald lemon green tea and butterfly pea flower color-changing drinks, and this year it is brown sugar pearl milk tea. Have you tried it? Whether you are following the trend or planning to satisfy your appetite, nutritionists recommend that you understand some health issues before tasting the delicious brown sugar bubble tea.

1. The calories and carbohydrates in brown sugar bubble tea are astonishing, so be careful of obesity!

Hand-shaken drinks are generally too high in calories. Before discussing the popular brown sugar bubble tea, you can first look at the calories in original bubble milk tea. According to the search results of the Food and Drug Administration's Food Nutrient Database, a 700cc cup of bubble milk tea contains more than 520 calories of trace sugar and more than 650 calories of full sugar. Among them, in terms of carbohydrates alone, a cup of full-sugar pearl milk tea contains up to 125 grams, which is equivalent to 2 bowls of rice, which is quite amazing.

Ni Manting, a nutritionist at Changhua Christian Hospital, said that although there is no data in the food nutrition database about the popular brown sugar bubble tea this summer, and the calories contained in each cup will vary depending on the amount of brown sugar used by each store, it should not be underestimated, especially since some stores use more brown sugar to create a "rich" visual and taste effect, which will invisibly increase the calories!

Brown sugar bubble tea tastes fragrant and sweet, and many people drink a cup every day. However, nutritionist Ni Manting reminds us that the World Health Organization has lowered the intake of refined sugars from 10% of the total daily calorie intake to 5%. Excessive intake of sugar may increase the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. It is recommended to reduce the frequency of intake of such sugary drinks as much as possible, especially people with blood sugar problems should avoid them.

If you want to drink it, you can also use the following 4 tips to reduce calorie intake when purchasing:

1. Change the large cup to a medium cup, and the medium cup to a small cup.

2. Change full sugar to half sugar, and half sugar to light sugar.

3. Please ask the beverage shop to use "less ingredients", that is, use less tapioca pearls.

4. You can use no ice or less ice instead. When the drink is too cold, the tongue's response to sweetness will be reduced, and you will unconsciously want to drink it sweeter.

2. Brown sugar contains minerals, but it is not irreplaceable!

Brown sugar is a type of cane sugar that has not been highly refined or bleached, and it retains more minerals than refined sugar. Indeed, from the Taiwan Food Nutrition Database, we can find that for the same 100 grams, although the calories of brown sugar are only slightly less than those of red sugar and sugar cubes, the minerals such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium contained are significantly dozens to hundreds of times higher.

Calcium is the main component of bones and teeth, and is also related to nerve and muscle contraction; potassium is related to fluid balance, nerve impulse conduction and muscle contraction ability; magnesium is related to nerve conduction and blood pressure control.

Compared with other refined sugars, although brown sugar contains higher amounts of minerals and is more helpful in promoting health, nutritionist Ni Manting said that these minerals can still be obtained from other foods with higher CP values. For example, if you want to supplement calcium, you can choose calcium-rich milk and dried fish. It is recommended that people try to follow the principle of "moderate but not excessive" intake when eating brown sugar. Do not just focus on minerals while ignoring the more dangerous problem of sugar obesity, so as not to lose the big picture for the small.

3. Can eating brown sugar cause cancer? It depends on the content of the dispute!

In recent years, brown sugar has attracted much attention due to its carcinogenicity due to the presence of acrylamide. Nutritionist Ni Manting explained that acrylamide produced during the manufacturing process of brown sugar is classified as a Class 2A food by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which means it is carcinogenic to "animals", but in epidemiological studies, there is no direct and sufficient evidence to show that it is a carcinogen to humans.

Although people do not need to worry too much about the health effects of acrylamide at present, it is still recommended to avoid excessive intake. In addition, different brands of brown sugar on the market contain different amounts of acrylamide, so you can choose to buy from reputable merchants.

Another controversial ingredient is caramel coloring. Some businesses may add caramel coloring to deepen the color of black sugar when making black sugar syrup in order to save money. In the past, caramel coloring was considered carcinogenic, but there is currently insufficient evidence to prove this, so people do not need to worry too much as long as they continue to eat normally according to their daily habits.

Moreover, caramel color is an approved food additive in Taiwan, the United States, and the European Union, but the standards for its addition are separately regulated. Taiwan has restrictions on the "scope, limit, and specification standards for the use of food additives."