Haribo Gummi Bears sound fun. They’re sugar free and a harmless sweet snack, right? Until you read the reviews. It seems to have a dramatic effect on people, which I’ve filed away in my memory, next to my Enemies List.
But what’s in them to cause this effect? That’s where it gets interesting. It says on the bag that they’re “Sugar Free”, but it’s a lie. They’re free of glucose and lactose, two specific sugars, but read the list of ingredients, and you discover that they’re full of other sugars.
Corn Syrup, Sugar, Gelatin, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Corn Starch, Artificial and Natural Flavors, Fractionated Coconut Oil, Carnauba Wax, Beeswax Coating, Artificial Colors Yellow 5, Red 40, Blue 1
Corn syrup is nothing but oligosaccharides. Sugar: more oligosaccharides, specifically disaccharides like sucrose (and how can they advertise that they’re sugar free when the second ingredient is “sugar”?). Gelatin, at least, is not a sugar, but a protein, collagen. Dextrose is a simple sugar, a monosaccharide, but it’s true, it’s not glucose. Still, consuming dextrose is a great way to get a rapid blood sugar spike.
So what these things are are pure, concentrated sugar bombs that pass straight into your colon as a potent syrup that drive your gut flora into a frenzy. Watch out for them.
Also, never trust that “sugar free” label.
But if you do have enemies, you can buy them in five pound bags on Amazon. Makes me wonder if they also sell pocket nukes and bulk neurotoxins.
Ah, Haribo. I am always overcome by desire whenever I see them, and yet I’m always slightly sickened when I eat them. Sugar free with added sugar or not, I wouldn’t recommend them. So sayeth a sentient sweet tooth, masquerading as a proper human.
I much prefer the “Unsweetened” label, but even then you need to check the ingredients list. Most things that claim to be Sugar Free(tm) around here are loaded with an artifical sweetener called Sucralose, which is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever had the misfortune of eating. It adds a flavour sort of like icing sugar mixed with chalk dust.
QFT.
Some foods advertised as sugar-free are sweetened with sugar alcohols. Some are okay, and have a very small effect on blood glucose. The most common, maltitol, is not one of those. IIRC, its effect on BG is about 75% that of an equal amount of sugar. So, sugar-free is technically true (maltitol is not sugar), but people who have to carefully monitor their BG need to be careful.
Wait, what? They’re labelled “sugar free” but the second ingredient you quote is not even corn syrup or glucose, it flat out says “sugar”. That’s not even deceptive advertising, that’s straight up false advertising. Are you sure that ingredient list isn’t from a non-“sugar free” version?
Typical how they use words to the most precise, rigorous, meaning of the word. “Sugar” I suppose, is that stuff distilled from cane. Anything similar, chemically, is just “sweet”.
Like the old, “When I said ‘I’d pick you up at 7:30’, I didn’t say I’d bring my car, So I’m technically correct to just lift you up off the ground.” or the response to the question, “Can you pass the sugar?” — Yes I _Can_. implicitly demanding the more rigorous imperative: “Pass the Sugar.”
another form of “wiggle words”
I think you might have been looking at the ingredients for normal Haribo bears, not the sugar free variety. Partly because I’m pretty sure that their explosive effect is due to the sorbitol sweetener used, which has a tendency to liquify the contents of your bowels (which doesn’t show up on your ingredients list), and also, of course, because of the corn syrup and sugar topping that list.
From the Amazon Q&A; http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EVQWKC/?tag=buzz0f-20
The ingredients Amazon has published are wrong. The correct ingredients are:
Hydrogenated Glucose Syrup ( LYCASIN ), Gelatin, Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Artificial Colors: Yellow 5, Blue 1, Red 40, Fractionated Coconut oil, Beeswax, Carnuaba Wax, Starch.
By GoFastParts on April 1, 2014
The date makes me a little bit skeptical, though.
correction: first listed ingredient is
according to a picture of the bag of Sugar free Gummi’s
interesting that hydrogenating glucose turns it into nonsugar.
Another name for sorbitol. Common ingredient in many sugarless cough drops/candies.
Names for glucose: Blood sugar, Dextrose, Corn sugar, D-Glucose, Grape sugar, Cerelose
re 7:
my response @8 was directly from the picture of the bag posted to sell the product on the Amazon site itself. So Amazon could not have distorted it themselves
re 9:
I always thought “corn syrup” was for fructose, to distinguish it as NOR glucose. Seems I was mistaken.
re 11:
oops corn syrup is not necessarily corn sugar
and TYPO alert: I used NOR instead of NOT [R is so close to T, I often miss]
I did not know what Lycasin was so I looked it up on wiki
the entry was short so I will post the whole thing the second paragraph sounds like it might be useful as an ingredient in a laxative
continuing for no apparent reason. That list of ingredients does include a mild warning that the sweeteners included, while not suger, can have laxative effects,
May of the reviews report flatulence and diarrhea so I guess they were correct about laxative effects.
Not what one would typically expect from a Gummi Bear treat.
many — not may
Yeah, but it’s all non-GMO, right?
Slithey Tove, Corn syrup is usually an equilibrium mixture of fructose and glucose, isolated after treatment with glucose isomerase. It is about (dry) 42% fructose, 50% glucose, rest glucose oligomers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
The ingredient list may be a hoax. This is an image of the ingredient list:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/files/2013/08/91pDstdvbsL._SL1500_.jpg
Oh, Great Rodent, those reviews!
Slightly off-topic, but what do you folks think of the sugar alcohol Erythritol? It’s the only low-calorie sweetener I’ve found that has the exact taste & mouth feel of “real” sugar, and (at least for me) no digestive side-effects. It’s ridiculously expensive, though, and mostly found retail as the main ingredient in Truvia.
Never heard of the sugar free version before today. BUT I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED THE GUMMIES. It’s the TEXTURE that makes gummies addictive (and of course, the sugar). Forget the 5 pound bag of gummies; you can by an actual 5 POUND GUMMY BEAR!! It’s a thousand times (the ad says) larger than the original little gummy bear. Here is a link to a “PATRIOTIC ” 5 lb. bear that is striped, you guessed it, red white and blue, each with its own corresponding “fruit” flavor. http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Largest-Gummy-Approx-5-pounds/dp/B00KY6WATY/ref=sr_1_11_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1465228046&sr=8-11&keywords=giant+5+pound+gummy+bear
I think the texture resembles that of nipples and penises and that is subconsciously part of the draw, at least for consenting gummy adults.
Dextrose is glucose, specifically α-D-glucopyranose. In solution, it exists as two main pyranose anomers, differing in the configuration at C(1), two minor furanose anomers, and the open (aldehyde) form.
Hey, you should know that.
Irrelevant things I feel you should know.
1) HaRiBo is so called because it was founded by Hans Riegel in Bonn in 1920.
2) The headquarters are still in Bonn, including an outlet shop selling all the Haribo products available worldwide.
3) Families drive to to the outlet from all over central Europe – on a normal day you’ll see at least French, Belgian and Dutch cars.
4) According to German Wikipedia, the slogan “Haribo macht Kinder froh – und Erwachsene ebenso” (Haribo makes children happy, and also adults) is the best known in Germany. The first verse was created 1935, the second 1962.
It’s made from the fermentation of glucose, and probably isolated via simulated moving bed chromatography using ion exchange resin. Hence its cost.
According to the Wiki article, it is mostly absorbed in the small intestines, and excreted in the urine. Being a tetritol (four carbons instead of six for the normal commercial alditols), it is hard for bacteria to digest, which makes it easier on the belly.
The only tox data I could find was LD50 Intraperitoneal mouse 7,000 mg/kg, which essentially says no toxic effects at normal usage.
I’ve seen foods labelled as “sugar free” because they are sweetened with honey or agave syrup. So I trust nothing unless I’ve read the ingredients list myself, and sometimes not even then.
Setting the sugar-free vs. regular Haribo aside (it’s the sugar-free ones that cause anal eruption), Haribo is quite possibly the worst big name gummy on the market. Give me a Black Forest (or, Hell, even a Trolli) any day…
Smart. In food marketing terms, “sugar free” means no added sucrose.
Honey is about the equivalent of HFCS (55% fructose, 40% glucose, plus highers), and Agave Syrup can be about the same, or even higher (up to 90% fructose). If the name ends in -ose, it is a sugar.
For example, the non-nutritive sugar tagatose is almost as sweet as sucrose, but won’t spike the blood glucose levels. Any marketing will say “sugar free”. *snicker*
Makes me wonder if they also sell pocket nukes and bulk neurotoxins.
I don’t know about neurotoxins, but they do sell uranium.
http://www.amazon.com/Images-SI-Uranium-Ore/dp/B000796XXM
I don’t recall Haribo ever advertizing as Sugar Free on their defaults.
They do make a sugar free gummy bear as well, which uses Maltitol Syrup as a sweetener, and those are the legendarily bowel-destroying ones
I think you may have found your ingredients list from one of the original variety pages on amazon.
When did that allegedly happen?
Nobody in the vicinity of the original plant would ever think that.
And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a “sugar free” variety here.
As for gummibears: If you go Haribo, go for the Saftbären. Or any brand of coke bottles. I love coke bottles….
Here labelling must be somewhat accurate like “no added sugar”* or “no added household sugar”**
*4point writing “contains sugar by nature”
**honey, agave syrup, apple syrup- In short: sugar.
@23 Nerd
Thank you for the info! I guess the cost is the reason it hasn’t been widely adopted by cola companies instead of other options? I love Aspartame in lots of things (and am convinced it’s safe at normal dosages – ugh, the arguments that statement provokes) but the mouth feel isn’t there. I’ve looked into purchasing Erythritol in bulk from Germany, mainly because I have found it simply impossible to give up cola (after many attempts spanning decades), and the diet versions all taste intolerable to me. I know I should give it up, but in recognizing I can’t, I’ve been making my own and trying to mitigate the glycemic impact by replacing the corn syrup or cane sugar with erythritol.
The label on V8 says, in HUGE TYPE, 100% vegetable juice. Right under that, in tiny type that is illegible because it doesn’t contrast with the background, it says “with added ingredients.” Really. They are evidently allowed to do that.
OK, they’re only available in the USA. Makes sense.
Apropos of nothing much, that reminds me of a silly incidence involving illegible type and goofy laws (or actually, law “enforcement”, the law itself was sensible): California has a law / regulation to the effect that commercial vehicles (trucks) must have clearly legible the company or whoever who owns(? and/or operates?) them. The winery my dad was working for at the time satisfied that law by painting on the trucks an image that looked-like a wine bottle label, clearly giving the name of winery and all the other required info, plus some advertising and decorative bumpf.
One of the trucks gets pulled over by the CHP, and the driver is ticketed because some of that advertising bumpf — “Proudly Made in blah-blah Valley” (as I now recall) — which ran along the lower(?) border of the label was in small-ish type in a V-shape as it followed the border, and not as easy read as the main, and legally-required, verbiage.
Dad, who amongst other things was responsible for the truck fleet, was not impressed. Fortunately, the lawyer had a sense of humor and dealt with the situation without anybody’s nose getting too out of joint.
Now sugar free!
(Contains sugar, sugar, goo and more sugar.)
Yeah well BLF, that’s a little bit different. 100% vegetable juice with added ingredients = not 100% vegetable juice.
Ingredients: Maltitol Syrup, Gelatin, Water, Citric Acid, Artificial Flavors, FD&C Yellow #5, Blue # 1, Red #40, Vegetable Oil (coconut & palm kernel), Carnauba Wax ( for anti-sticking)
is what I found for the sugar-free variety. I am damn careful with maltitol. Def. wouldn’t eat anything with that as first ingredient. But damn, the reviews are funny!
@Robert Westbrook
Re: Erythritol
I really like it and use it a lot. It doesn’t have the laxative effect that some other sugar alcohols have. It doesn’t have a noticeable effect on BG (for reasons noted by Nerd of Redhead in #23). And I don’t notice an aftertaste like with other no-calorie sweeteners.
Correct.
Illegible type = illegible type.
Type illegible for dubious and probably “should be illegal” reasons ≠ type which some stoopid
copgoon decides “is illegal” because he’s possibly behind on his ticket quota.Cervantes@#31: they started with 100% vegetable juice, then added stuff. See? Easy once you know how to parse it.
I’m still waiting for the low carb water.
Food labeling is a key gimmick of the food industry. My favorite is spray oils that have 0% fat per serving. How could that be!? Well, what they call a “serving” is so small that the amount of fat is below the threshold defined by the regulations. Voila! None fat spray oil. Of course, the average person couldn’t spray such a tiny amount of oil.
Marcus — NPR is now advertising gluten free vodka. I shit thee not. Heard it on Car Talk.
Proper vodka is actually distilled from fermented wheat, so maybe that’s not as far out as it sounds.
Here’s a fun one: Preservative free salt. Bwah?
Actually it is. Any competently designed distillation apparatus should not allow the non-volatile contents of the pot (i.e. glutens) to get into the distillate, for any distilled liquors.
41.
Good start. What about gluten-free Himalayan salt: http://www.images-iherb.com/l/HML-00005-3.jpg
And of course, the extremely urgently needed gluten-free shampoo, can’t be without that to put on crackers: http://biovea.net/ca/en/images/products/xlrg/12122_z.jpg
44.
Actually, the salt is supposed to be GMO-free, which is even more funny. My bad.
May I suggest the Amazon reviews for Veet for Men?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/review/B000KKNQBK/R3GDDEL1SC1QQ5/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_rvw_2?ie=UTF8&cursor=2
The best conceivable use for Gummi Bears is to drop them, one per serving, into a large test tube containing 20 grams or so of potassium chlorate that has freshly been heated just to its melting point. You get a purplish jet of flame and a lovely roaring noise that give very lively responses from nine-year-old kids, and from some of us less-inhibited adults.
I probably need to try it with stoners, too.
I probably need to try it with stoners, too.
You’ll need a really big test tube.
This diabetic has seriously been yearning for sugar free gummy bears. Shame.
Oh, gods, sucralose… *shudder*
*makes face* Sorbitol, bane of diabetics everywhere. I’m quite fond of the sugar-free Reese’s cups, but more than two of them lands one on the toilet for ages, and these are the bite-size kind, since the full-sizes aren’t made sugar-free. You’d think after being diabetic for fifteen years and having some at least once a week you’d develop a tolerance, but noooooo.
@42 inquisitiveraven
I think the most amusing & face-palming salt label I’ve seen is this one, which claims the salt is 280 million years old, but “expires” in 2018. I guess they dug it up just in time.
Ahh Haribo, a favorite lax for both pro-ana folks and pranksters alike. I remember the big hullabaloo when those “Olean” potato chips (or whatever Olestra-derived name they had) were on the market and everyone complained of its laxative qualities.
Slightly tangentially, I wish the world would just put aspartame back into stuff and stop trying to turn actual sugars into some magical not-sugar thing (despite the molecular structures still being sugars, like wtf).
53.
I love aspartame (and its competitors). Many people complain that it doesn’t have quite the same mouthfeel (such as in diet drinks), and I agree. I far prefer the non-syrupy feel of aspartame to the syrupy feel of sugar.
Any particular reason?
Ahh, I think I didn’t word that well – I’m all for “trying to” create sweeteners which don’t have the dangerous effects of sugar, whether sugar-derived or not. I’m hating this trend of claiming “no sugar” just because it isn’t cane sugar though. I should probably learn more about these materials before I get so judgmental because I don’t actually know which if any of these sugar-derived sweeteners are or are not having the same effect as regular sugar. I admit I’m sometimes defensively pro-aspartame so my gut-reaction is to scream “Why are we bothering with all this when there’s aspartame already?!”
I too prefer the less-viscous feel of aspartame in diet drinks over “regular” ones, and stevia sweeteners always leave this sort of woody-cardboardey aftertaste. I guess everyone’s got their thing, so I try to resist huffing at people who can’t stomach the aftertaste in aspartame. I fail at that, clearly, hah.
In my native Belgium, the common sugar is beet sugar. It is chemically identical to cane sugar, yet, cane sugar is commonly sold as a ‘health food’.
There is no evidence of that. There was a study a while ago that claimed that the sweet taste of ‘artificial sweeteners’ made us eat more because they make the body expect sugar that doesn’t come, but it has not been duplicated as far as I know, and it does not really make much sense.
I think it is usually better to have more choices rather than fewer, but you have a point, I think.
I guess tastes differ. That would be a good reason to have more rather than fewer choices.
@53 Robert Westbrook
It’s the same reason that bottled water has an expiration date. It’s not that the salt is going to go off, it’s that by the points bits out the outside environment have managed to get in, which could easily spoil the flavor of the contents.