We are very proud of the fact that all our drinks contain no added sugar unlike many other ready-made protein drinks. But you may have noticed that there is still sugar present in our products ,so how does this happen? The sugar found in UFIT drinks occurs naturally in the form of lactose from the milk we use. This is 100% natural and is present in all milk products including the fresh milk use in your tea or pour over your cereal.
So how do you know if the sugar in your food is naturally occurring or if additional sugar has been added?
The most important thing when it comes to reading labels is to look at the ingredients list. If sugar does not appear here, but it does appear in the nutritional table this means that the sugar is found naturally in the ingredients used. For example, lactose is a form of sugar found in milk. If sugar does appear in the ingredients list, then some (or all) of the sugar shown in the nutritional table will be sugar that is added during the manufacturing process.
What other names is sugar known as?
We have already mentioned that lactose is a form of sugar that is naturally occurring in milk, but there are lots of other names for sugar which can make it difficult to understand food and drink labels. Other popular sugars you may find on ingredients lists are sucrose otherwise known as 'table sugar', glucose, dextrose, fructose and maltodextrin are all forms of sugar and can be found anything from fruit, bread, pasta and even vegetables.
So how do we sweeten our drinks if we don't use sugars?
UFIT is sweetened with sucralose which is a calorie-free sweetener derived from sucrose and is up to 650 times sweeter than sugar, meaning we only need to use a teeny tiny amount to make our drinks deliciously sweet.
But aren't sweeteners worse for me than sugar?
There are no studies to show that sucralose has any adverse effects for human health and it is chosen by many brands to safely sweeten our toothpastes and chewing gums without damaging our teeth. Sucralose also has very little effect on our blood sugar levels so it is used widely in diabetic products.
We hope this article has helped you to understand your food labels a little better. If you have any further questions regarding our products please feel free to tweet us @ufitdrinks
