DIABETIC SWEETENER OBTAINED FROM TROPICAL TREE
Since Elsa was
diagnosed with type II diabetes, she made sure to be informed about those food
products that wouldn't aggravate her health. Her doctor reported that one of
the first products to be avoid is sugar, but Elsa has a habit of sweeten her
food and drinks.
Elsa
learned about some natural low calorie sweeteners that could be used, including
erythritol, a sweetener found in fruits and vegetables, which is one of the
options to sweeten foods and drinks for patients with diabetes. However,
extraction is usually made from products with
high nutritional and commercial value (such as grapes), for that reason, its
price is higher than other sweeteners.
Students
of the Technological Institute of Monterrey (ITESM) in México, identified the
problem and developed a process for producing erythritol from sapodilla, a
tropical tree from which chewing gum was initially extracted and that has less
commercial demand than other fruits and vegetables. Pedro Magaña Mejia and
Alexis Lara Azar from Biotechnology Engineering and Moisés Medina Espinoza and
Karen López Solís from Industrial and Systems Engineering, managed to create
this "zero calorie" sweetener, suitable for people with diabetes,
hypertension and obesity, like Elsa.
According
to the students, during the production of erythritol are no salts, chemicals or
preservatives were used; erythritol is traditionally produced by fermentation
of glucose with yeast. This product does not detonate dental caries, and does
not cause gastric side effects as pronounced as with other other sweeteners.
However,
when consumed in excess, erythritol may cause some inconvenient laxative
reaction. Therefore, it is important to check with the doctor or specialist
before integrating it to a diet.
Erythritol
obtained by students at the Technological Institute of Monterrey, is a totally
natural product. This factor represents an advantage over other eritritoles,
since it has been found that the product contains only 60 to 70 percent of the
sweetness of sugar cane, and some companies add other ingredients like trans
fats to enhance taste and make it sweeter.
The
proposed sweetener produced from the sapodilla provides 0.2 calories per gram
and with a glycemic index of zero, so it can be used by people with diabetes
mellitus. The researchers note that the food problem is the calorie content,
for that reason they seek to open a market in synergy with food manufacturers
who require sweeteners, mainly in the soft drink industry.
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