Sour plum soup is a traditional summer drink in Beijing. Many people like to have a cup of sour plum soup when drinking, thinking that it has the effect of relieving greasy and lowering blood fat, and can also help to lose weight.

Rumors:

The weather is getting hotter and hotter, and many people begin to drink sour plum soup to relieve the heat.

Drinking sour plum soup has a long history. The "Tugong Mei Chao" recorded in ancient books is actually an ancient sour plum soup. In the Qing Dynasty, sour plum soup was a summer drink specially made for the emperor in the palace, and later spread to the people and became a traditional summer drink in Beijing. In the hot season, most people will buy ebony and cook it, and then drink it chilled. In many restaurants, sour plum soup is also an essential pre-meal drink.

In recent years, some canned or bottled sour plum soup drinks have appeared in the market. It claims on the label that it is made of pure natural raw materials such as ebony and hawthorn, and contains no chemicals. It also has the effects of relieving greasy and reducing blood fat, and can also help to lose weight. Does sour plum soup really have this effect?

Lose weight? A good wish

The traditional sour plum soup is mainly made of dark plum and hawthorn with water and sugar. The reason why ebony soup can relieve greasy food is that ebony and hawthorn are both alkaline foods, which can adjust the pH in the body and remove greasy food accumulated in the stomach.

In fact, the acidity and alkalinity of food can not affect the acidity and alkalinity of human body. Although some studies have shown that eating a lot of acidic food every day will increase acidic metabolites, which will affect the acid-base balance of the human body. But in fact, our bodies will not easily become alkaline because we eat an extra catty of alkaline food (such as dark plum) a day. The human body has a very powerful regulatory system to maintain acid-base balance, so that body fluids are in a very accurate weak alkaline range. For normal people, the general diet is difficult to change the acidity and alkalinity of the body. Therefore, it is very unreliable to change the pH of human body by drinking sour plum soup.

It is said that ebony is rich in polyphenol antioxidants, which is beneficial to remove peroxides of fat metabolism, accelerate lipid metabolism, help to remove excess fat in blood, and then help to control body weight (body fat).

The color of ebony is close to black, which is mainly derived from polyphenol antioxidants. Generally speaking, fruits are darker in color and contain more antioxidants. It was found that fresh ebony was rich in polyphenols, and the total content of antioxidants in 100g was about 175-345mg. However, the current research evidence does not prove that these antioxidant components help to lose weight. Moreover, when making sour plum soup, there are few dark plums and few antioxidants in the soup. In order to get more polyphenols antioxidants, it is best to eat more fruits and vegetables, and eating dark plum directly is better than drinking sour plum soup.

Lowering blood fat? Don't be superstitious

Other studies have found that eating more vegetables and fruits rich in polyphenols and antioxidants can help reduce blood lipids and relieve hypertension, which is beneficial to cardiovascular health. But this is not the effect that can be achieved by eating a single fruit or vegetable. Eating more fruits and vegetables is a healthy eating habit worth promoting. In addition to controlling blood lipid and blood pressure, it also has the advantages of balanced nutrition, adequate dietary fiber intake and avoiding eating more animal foods. It is ok to drink some dark plum soup as part of a balanced diet occasionally, but you can't rely on dark plum soup to reduce blood fat.

So, is there any special hypolipidemic ingredient in sour plum soup? It is found that feeding rats with ursolic acid extracted from dark plum can reduce their blood lipid content. However, there is little evidence of human research. There have been studies in Japan that the ebony extract can't reduce blood fat, because a large amount of ebony extract is used in animal experiments, but the ebony obtained by drinking sour plum soup is much less.

A study on a group of patients with mild hypercholesterolemia at the University of California, Davis found that eating100g of plums every day is beneficial to lowering blood lipid levels, but researchers believe that this is due to the role of dietary fiber in plums. However, sour plum soup contains almost no dietary fiber. If you want to get more dietary fiber, you should eat more whole fruits, vegetables and coarse grains.

Is sour plum soup delicious? But that's sugar.

Sour plum soup is just an ordinary drink. Use small ebony when cooking. Because ebony itself tastes sour and bitter, it won't taste very good if eaten alone.

When making sour plum soup, the general practice is to add more sugar in order to taste good. Usually, a lot of rock sugar will be added when cooking ebony soup at home, but this ebony soup drink on the market often has a high sugar content, and there is about 50 grams of white sugar in a 500 ml bottle.

The latest recommendation of the World Health Organization is that the intake of added sugar per person per day should not exceed about 50 grams, and it is best to control it at about 25 grams. Countries are also restricting the sugar in drinks. Excessive sugar intake increases energy intake, which will increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as obesity and hyperlipidemia, which is not good for human body.

So it is unhealthy to drink too much sour plum soup. Take sour plum soup as a summer drink, and occasionally drink it. As for those health care functions, it is better not to be too superstitious.

Rumor expert: Ruan, director of the Science and Technology Department of Kexin Food Nutrition Information Exchange Center.