Today, Three Kings Day, those who eat a piece of roscón for dessert will surely notice it less sweet. If so, it will not be a simple personal impression, but the result of the fact that the amounts of sugar have been reduced in pastry shops. Àlex Lera, from the Sant Llehí pastry shop in Sant Antoni de Vilamajor and member of the Board of Directors of the Pastry Guild of Barcelona, recognizes that in recent years there has been a tendency to reduce the amounts of sugar: “What we are looking for is to enhance the ingredients. By lowering the sugar you make the flavor of the rest of the ingredients more noticeable and the product is not so sweet.”
The roscón de Reyes is also less sweet than the one from years ago: “If we add more or less sugar it is very noticeable. In the case of the roscón, the intention is for the flavor of the brioche or marzipan to be more noticeable, however, if you put a lot of sugar on top of the candied fruits you end up harming the flavor you were looking for in the beginning,” explains Lera.
At the Sant Llehí pastry shop, Lera is part of the second generation of pastry chefs and gives another example of a product present in many pastry desserts such as whipped cream, in which the amounts of sugar have been reduced practically by half: “ 30 years ago, my father added between 150 and 200 grams of sugar per liter, whereas today, we add 100 grams to a liter of whipped cream.”
Reducing the amounts of sugar in pastry products is becoming more common. Lera confirms that among the people of the union many of them confirm this decrease and cites some examples that are carried out in pastry renovation courses: “Sugars are lowered, they try to find a better texture or they dispense with sweetness to achieve a better conservation.” And he adds that all the new preparations “are also lower in sugars.”
What happens with the roscón and the pastry is the reflection of a more general phenomenon. In Spain, sugar consumption is decreasing. According to the Statista platform, sugar intake 10 years ago was 50 million kilograms higher than today. The trend is clearly decreasing, since since 2013, each year the demand for this food has been lower than the previous one, with 2020 being the only year in which this phenomenon was not met and consumption increased. This trend, however, is totally contrary to what is experienced on a global scale, where intake does not stop growing.
One of the reasons to understand, in the case of Spain, this downward trend in sugar consumption is the increased awareness of the majority of the population about the harms of added sugars. According to Diana Díaz Rizzolo, professor of Health Sciences Studies at the UOC, advances in science have been a very important factor: “Having more information about how harmful sugar consumption can be helps to be able to send a message. much more precise to the population.”
Toni Massanés, director of the Alícia Foundation, agrees and states that the increase in this awareness is due to the fact that “scientific evidence shows that there is a relationship between excess sugar and how it negatively affects diseases caused by bad foods.” Feeding Habits".
Díaz Rizzolo adds two other factors that have helped make the population more aware of the dangers of sugar. On the one hand, the improvement in scientific dissemination, since "a few years ago the message was published exclusively in medical and scientific journals, while today it has been able to overcome these barriers and reach a more understood population." In this sense, he also values the work of the media, which he believes “has given truth to the messages and has helped deny false rumors that had been perpetuated over time.”
Awareness has been key to stopping sugar consumption that, according to Massanés, “is still much higher than what many nutritionists recommend.”
Understanding the success of this food is simple. Elena Roura, doctor in Nutrition and scientific manager of the Alícia Foundation, explains what properties make it so appetizing: “When you eat it, the sugar goes directly into the blood and when it reaches the brain it gives you a feeling of energy. and euphoria.” Massanés remembers that centuries ago sugar had been like “a medicine and a great gift, a very precious food for many,” largely because of its ability to give us this dose of energy.
This reason is what makes the director of the Alícia Foundation respond to the fact that sugar consumption continues to increase on a global scale: “In many parts of the world, access to foods with more calories and more sugar is relatively recent. , and in these cases the desire surpasses the awareness of its harm, which in Spain we have had for only a few years.”
Apart from this greater awareness, in Spain in recent years several measures have also been applied with the aim of improving eating habits, reducing sugar consumption and warning of the harm of certain industrial and processed products, promoted by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs. , at that time led by Alberto Garzón.
In January 2021, a VAT increase on sugary drinks came into effect, going from 10% to 21%. A year later, any type of advertising of sweets and sugary drinks aimed at minors was prohibited. Also in 2021, Nutri-Score, a nutritional traffic light, was implemented for all packaged processed products with the aim of guiding consumers towards healthier eating options and encouraging the food industry to improve the nutritional quality of its foods.
Despite this, Díaz Rizzolo points out that “there is still a long way to go with respect to nutritional policies” and considers “increasing the letter of the ingredients of the products” as an example of a necessary measure.
