Once you have diabetes, you have to restrict your diet to sugary foods, which brings a lot of trouble to your life. In order to relieve diabetic patients of their “worries”, many businesses have launched sugar-free food, currently on the market can be described as a wide range of sugar-free food, a wide variety of different forms, such as sugar-free cookies, sugar-free cereals, sugar-free milk powder, sugar-free drinks and even sugar-free ice cream, etc., so that diabetic patients are confused and at a loss. The emergence of sugar-free food has undoubtedly been widely favored by diabetic patients and their families. At the same time, a series of questions have arisen: Is there sugar in sugar-free food or not? Is it possible for diabetic patients to consume sugar-free food without any limit? 1.What is sugar-free food? The so-called sugar-free food refers to sweet food that does not contain table sugar, namely sucrose (cane sugar and beet sugar) and starch sugar (glucose, maltose). However, from the medical professional point of view, the name “sugar-free food” is not standardized, and it seems more appropriate to call it “sucrose-free food”. When it comes to sugar, people think of glucose and sucrose, which are products of daily life, but there is a big difference between the medical sugar and the sugar we think of. Medical sugar is also called carbohydrate, which is a general term for monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides. Glucose and fructose are monosaccharides, sucrose, lactose and maltose are disaccharides, and the starch in rice and flour that we eat in our daily lives is a polysaccharide. Regardless of which sugar, the last in the intestinal tract is broken down and converted into monosaccharides before being absorbed and used by the body. 2.How to choose sugar-free food? Because China has no uniform standards for sugar-free food, so the market is somewhat confusing. Such as individual enterprises play word games, in the packaging of the prominent position to enlarge the word “sugar-free”, in the inconspicuous position with small letters marked “no cane sugar” to deceive consumers. It is important to know that no cane sugar is not the same as no other sugar. Such foods can only be said to be sucrose-free products, not sugar-free products. Some products are labeled “no cane sugar”, but in the ingredients list is marked with white sugar or glucose, in fact, cane sugar and white sugar is the same thing, just called different. Some products do not use cane sugar as a sweetener, but they are replaced by saccharin, a substitute for cane sugar, as a sweetener. There are also products that do not contain sucrose, but contain maltose, which also can not be called sugar-free food. Therefore, in the purchase of sugar-free products, consumers should not only look at the packaging labeled “sugar-free food”, but also look at the list of ingredients, what kind of sweetener (such as xylitol, maltitol, saccharin, etc.) instead of the sugar, such as sucrose (sugar), glucose, etc.. The food labeled “no cane sugar” should not be consumed blindly, but to see if it contains other sugars such as glucose. In addition, it is also necessary to see whether the food itself contains sugar. In short, whether it is maltose, glucose, or other sugars, excessive consumption can cause blood sugar to rise, causing harm to diabetics. 3, sugar-free food does not have the role of lowering blood sugar sugar-free food for part of the type 2 diabetes patients, can play a supplementary therapeutic role, not only to bring patients a sense of satiety, but also has the role of regulating blood sugar, nourishing the five organs, to prevent various complications. However, sugar-free food is not a medicine after all, and does not have the effect of lowering blood sugar. Especially for type 1 diabetics, they must take medication to control it. Due to some advertising and publicity over-exaggerated sugar-free food sugar efficacy, so that diabetic patients believe it, sugar-free food instead of drugs, and even superstition sugar-free food and give up drug treatment, resulting in serious adverse consequences. 4, sugar-free food is not sugar-free On the market, most sugar-free food is essentially carbohydrates or other sugars, only without sucrose, or with xylitol and other alternatives to sucrose. But most sugar-free foods are made from grain, the ingredients are still starch and other raw materials, and our daily consumption of steamed buns, rice absorbed sugar, calories are not different. These foods are digested and absorbed and eventually turned into glucose in the body, which raises blood sugar. There is also “sugar-free milk powder”, milk originally contains lactose, lactose can also be broken down into glucose and galactose after digestion. So diabetic patients can not eat an unlimited amount, but to count the calories of sugar-free food into the total calories of the daily diet, that is, to reduce other diets, so that the total daily calorie balance. In short, after understanding the above knowledge, diabetic patients facing a wide range of sugar-free food, will not be “no opinion”. By choosing the right sugar-free foods and cooperating with comprehensive diabetes treatment, it is possible for patients to achieve the goal of “improving the quality of life and enjoying the pleasures of a healthy life”.