Philadelphia, August 20, 2018 - Dairy foods are popular among consumers, and sales gross more than $125 billion per year (IDFA, 2017). With dairy product popularity comes new demands from consumers for healthier, low-calorie products that taste the same as their higher calorie counterparts. In a report published in the Journal of Dairy Science researchers review the options available to the dairy industry to reduce sugar in products such as ice cream, yogurt, and flavored milk without sacrificing flavor.
The public health and consumer focus on health has increased in the past 20 years, leading to a significant push for healthier food choices including dairy products. Overconsumption of sugar, for example, can contribute to a host of issues such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and dental cavities.
"Dairy foods represent a large market," explained lead investigator MaryAnne Drake, PhD, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor, Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Sciences, Southeast Dairy Foods Research Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA. "The dilemma of how to reduce sugar content without sacrificing flavor and negatively affecting product sales is challenging, as sugar plays an important role in dairy foods, not only in flavor, but also in texture, color, and viscosity. Replacing sugar can have negative effects, making substitution inherently difficult."
Dairy products like ice cream, yogurt, and flavored milk are potentially high in unwanted added sugar. Some of the standard processes for developing healthier food products, such as fat, sugar, and salt reduction, result in an unacceptable flavor. Sweet taste perception can also be affected by texture of the food matrix and the presence of fat. Other sugar reduction techniques include hydrolysis of lactose, ultrafiltration, and direct reduction. In this review, researchers review recent studies to assess the role of sugar, alternative sweeteners, and sugar reduction in ice cream, yogurt, and flavored milk and discuss the options available to the dairy industry.
Ice cream
Ice cream is one of the most heavily consumed dairy products in the world. To achieve the sweet taste desired by consumers, between 10 to 14 percent sugar needs to be added. Studies have shown that reduced sugar and reduced fat products, such as ice cream, show a higher propensity for a bitter aftertaste and a lower intensity of creaminess. Among the promising options the researchers found were:
Yogurt
Yogurt is generally recognized as a healthy food because of its nutritional content, but it is usually sweetened with sugar to increase palatability. Several studies have reported that liking yogurt is influenced by texture, aroma, and taste and that sweetness is an important component.
Flavored milk
Flavored milk is popular among children and adults because of its special taste and ability to meet the dietary requirements for dairy foods in the United States. Studies have shown that flavored milk increases milk consumption. Chocolate milk, the most popular flavor, typically has higher sugar content and is therefore a frequent target for sugar reduction techniques. However, reducing sugar in chocolate milk is quite costly and many school directors choose the higher sugar alternative to reduce cost or choose to eliminate chocolate milk entirely. There have been several studies into alternative ways of reducing sugar calories in chocolate milk with some contradictory results.
Overall, the most successful techniques for sugar reduction in dairy foods involve replacing sugar with nonnutritive sweeteners, whether natural or artificial, because these provide the sweet taste desired by consumers without added calories. Direct reduction of sugar and lactose hydrolysis methods also show promise.
"Understanding current sugar-reduction techniques, research, and consumer response to sugar reduction in dairy products is important for dairy manufacturers in order to design and produce sugar-reduced products," noted Dr. Drake. "Sugar reduction is an inherently difficult task due to the many functions of sugar in food products, but progress is being made in developing products acceptable to consumers."
"Reducing sugar is everyone's responsibility in order to improve individual and public health and this review paper is timely to highlight options available to dairy industry," commented Siva Kaliappan, Vice President Product Research, National Dairy Council, Rosemont, IL, USA.
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Journal of Dairy Science