Researchers develop cereals with 30 percent less sugar

Even supposedly healthy foods such as cereals and fruit yogurt often contain large amounts of sugar. Researchers in Bremerhaven have found a way to reduce the sugar content in processed organic products without compromising taste and consistency.

The Reformulation Strategies for Organic Foods (Reformbio) project at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences is looking for ways to reduce the sugar content in processed organic foods without sacrificing taste and consistency. Initial tastings of a newly developed crunchy muesli yielded positive results.

"We were able to develop a muesli that is just as crunchy as the sugary varieties, but contains 30 per cent less sugar," says project manager Kirsten Buchecker. "This also improved the nutriscore from C to A."

For many people, sweets are part of their diet. What they often don't consider: Even (organic) foods considered healthy, such as cereals and fruit yogurt for example, often contain large amounts of sugar. Overweight, obesity and type II diabetes can be the result of too much sugar consumption even in childhood. According to the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), 47 percent of women and 62 percent of men in Germany are overweight, and the figure for children and adolescents is 15 percent. The consumption of too much sugar is one of the causes.

Good taste thanks to food pairing

To counteract this, another approach in the Reformbio project is food pairing, in which foods that are sometimes very different, complement each other perfectly in terms of taste. Which foods complement each other can be determined automatically with the help of a flavor database. This offers an opportunity for natural sweeteners.

"Natural sweeteners have an unusual flavor of their own. In combination with certain fruits, however, this can enhance the fruity flavor," explains Kirsten Buchecker. She says this can be used particularly well for the next product to be developed in the project: fruit yogurt. "Perhaps we will find innovative flavor combinations in the project or be able to recombine popular varieties with less sugar," says Buchecker.

In order to have a more positive impact on nutrition, the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, together with associations and institutions from the fields of nutrition, health, the food industry, consumer protection and science, has adopted the "National Reduction and Innovation Strategy for Sugar, Fats and Salt in Ready-to-Eat Products." By 2025, for example, manufacturers want to reduce the sugar content in breakfast cereals by at least 20 percent. In the long term, a sugar reduction of 30 percent is planned.

Anyone who wants to try the alternative sweetening methods can do that at Biofach in Nuremberg from July 26 to 29 at the stand of the state Bremen.