Are Health Drinks Really Healthy?

                        

You may have came across the advertisements of the food products which claim to have many health benefits and is endorsed by very well known celebrities and sportsperson. One such type of food category is malt based health drinks whose advertisements focusses mainly on children. You may have children in your homes who use them or maybe you are using them or have used them in the past.
They claim to have a lot of health benefits including increasing stamina, increasing height, providing energy, making you stronger, etc. But are these products really healthy and isn't there something that these companies are hiding from you? Today in this blog we will be discussing about these so-called health products and know more about the reality of health benefits which these companies claim to have.

What is malt based products?

Malt based drinks are usually made from cereal grain such as wheat and barley. These cereals are first converted into sprouts by first putting them in water and then soaking them. Then these sprouts are roasted and dried, after which they are crushed to make a powder which is used as a base in majority of health drinks. The companies which make these drinks, market their products as a very healthy option for children. They use well known celebrities and sportspersons in their advertisement to spread their claims among the common audience. But one thing that these companies never tell is that their products are full of sugar.

Why they are harmful for your health?

Most of these malt based drink contains a large amount of sugar in them. A very famous malt based drink contains almost 50gm sugar per 100gm of the product. Many of the other brands are not too far behind and most of them contains more than 40gm of sugar per 100gm. This excess of sugar can be very harmful for people. It can lead to obesity, heart problems and other diseases. According to World Health Organization (WHO), adults and children should take less than 10% added sugar in their diet in a day. We get natural sugar from fruits and milk which is sufficient for us. According to American Heart Association,  our body don't require any added sugar for its proper functioning. The recommend daily limit of added sugar for a grown man is 36 grams and for women is 25 grams. When we consume these malt based drinks, we take an excess amount of sugar in our body which could be dangerous for us and our children.

Solution

To control sugar, the government have made certain regulations and guidelines but these are not very effective. Fssai, which is a government body responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, have given instructions to food and beverage companies to not use more than 36 grams of sugar per 100 grams of the product. But these instructions are hardly followed by any companies and only 20% of the products follow this sugar threshold. Government have also asked the manufacturers to give warning to the customers on the both side of the product if the sugar value in their products are very high but hardly any manufacturer do this. There are many such rules and regulations by the government but they are not implemented on the ground and manufacturers ignore them for their own benefits. These companies only care about their profits and sales of their products and they put customer's health very low on their priorities. So, it becomes the responsibility of the customers to be aware and use any product only after checking their contents and nutritional values. Don't get fooled by the advertisements and marketing campaigns of these products and use any food product only after thoroughly checking it.