A New Natural Sweetener - Glycyrrhizin

Glycyrrhizin is an active ingredient in the sweetness of licorice. It is a very promising pure natural sweetener. It has high sweetness (sweetness is about 80-300 times that of sucrose), low heat energy, safe and non-toxic and strong The medical and health care effect is the most ideal sweetener for patients with hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. It can make up for the shortcomings of sucrose and other sweeteners induced by the above diseases.

Glycyrrhizin has been used in medicine for many years, but its application in food is not yet common. For this reason, Thew Arnott, a British natural raw material supplier, plans to expand its application in the food industry. Its recently launched Ceromag is made from glycyrrhizin.

It is understood that Thew Arnott imports licorice from China and extracts active ingredients from licorice root. The company claims that the extract has no product number and is soluble in ammonia and insoluble in glacial acetic acid. Nick Newman, the company's sales representative, said that glycyrrhizin has been used in the pharmaceutical industry for 15 years. Although it is also used in the food industry, it is not very common.

The main goal of the supplier is to reduce the amount of sugar in foods and beverages. In addition, it acts as a masking agent to remove the bitter aftertaste. For example, when applied to Seville jam, it masks the natural bitterness of oranges. More importantly, glycyrrhizin can still be used in high-temperature environments, which makes it an ideal ingredient for low-sugar products such as jam.

It should be noted that some studies have found that glycyrrhizin has a negative impact on the health of children, pregnant women and unborn babies. For example, in early 2017, Finnish researchers published a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The study pointed out that if excessive use of glycyrrhizin will cause long-term damage to children's memory and intelligence.

Nick Newman said that the above study used natural licorice as the research object. One of the ingredients in glycyrrhizin is like gluten in cereals and lactose in dairy products, which some people cannot absorb. However, the provided Ceromag has been evaluated by EFSA and certified as a safe ingredient. However, he added that if the use of glycyrrhizin in a licorice product exceeds 4 g / kg, the product label must include the words "containing licorice-use with caution in patients with hypertension".