“Sweet” flavor as “sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty” one of the five flavors in people’s lives and diet is essential, but for diabetics – sugar! –But for diabetics – sugar – is a taboo subject, especially for the original sweet tooth of diabetics is more abhorrent, and some even can not eat sugar and bored, and then relax the control of the diet, resulting in unsatisfactory blood glucose control. How to solve this painful problem, perhaps this is added sweeteners sugar-free food “rampant” reason. Sweeteners are substances that have a sweet taste but do not belong to the sugar group, do not cause blood sugar fluctuations after use and do not increase the user’s calories. It is with sweeteners, so that the diabetes sugar-free or sugar-substitute foods are varied and competing, let us understand the sweeteners. Currently we use sweeteners can be broadly divided into two categories: First, only a trace or no caloric artificial sweeteners: monosodium glutamate (MSG): is the oldest sweetener, the sweetness is about 500 times that of sucrose, which has no calories and does not raise blood glucose, but its safety is still controversial, infants or pregnant women should be prohibited from the use of saccharin in food. Aspartame: It is synthesized from aspartic acid and phenylalanine, its sweetness is 200 times that of sucrose, and its calorie is the same as sucrose, but due to its high sweetness, the calorie produced by normal usage is almost negligible, so it is widely used in various foods, the beauty of aspartame is that it is unstable and easy to decompose in high temperature or acidic environment, which will lead to the loss of sweet taste. Therefore, you should add it at the end of cooking. Stevia: extracted from natural plants, the sweetness is about 300 times that of sucrose, the calorie is equivalent to 1/300 of sucrose, the physical properties are stable, and it does not participate in human metabolism. Second, artificial sweeteners containing a certain amount of heat: xylitol: the plant hemicellulose polypentose by hydrolysis of xylose, and then hydrogenated reduced to xylitol. Can be used to replace sucrose, its sweetness is 0.9-1.1 times that of sucrose, calories equivalent to glucose, its metabolism in the body has nothing to do with insulin, will not increase blood glucose concentration. However, some studies have shown that excessive consumption of xylitol can elevate blood triglycerides, causing coronary atherosclerosis. Sorbitol: Sweetness is 0.6 times of sucrose, calories are slightly lower than glucose, it will not be converted to glucose in the blood after use, and its metabolism is not governed by insulin. Maltitol: sweetness is close to sucrose, does not produce calories after intake, and does not have an effect on blood lipids. To summarize the current variety of sweet substitutes, sugar-free food is flooding the current market, as a diabetic patient should be how to choose and use it?1, to buy the regular manufacturers, to ensure that the quality of sugar-free food issues.2, some of the products advertisements overly sugar-free, but pay attention to its ingredients list to see whether to add fructose and other sweeteners. Can not be used blindly. 3, even if sugar-free food can not be consumed in unlimited quantities, both sugar-free food or sugary food should be calculated in the total calories that should be consumed every day. It is best to be able to conduct a blood glucose test to understand the blood glucose situation after the intake of sugar substitutes. If the blood sugar is very high should be contraindicated. 4, the most important thing to note is that sugar-free food does not have a hypoglycemic effect, do not listen to advertisements, delay the condition. In short, diabetic patients must pay attention to a small number of meals, scientific and balanced diet.