Calculating the Sugar Content of a Gelato

Do you really know how much is in yours?

Image credit: Gelatologist

Introduction

Being a dessert, mostly anyone would expect Gelato to contain sugar. But as a maker or a taster, have you ever really thought about how much sugar really goes into yours? Because it might be more than you think and, living in a world threatened by a pandemic of obesity and diabetes, that knowledge is actually more important than you think.

In this article I will discuss various ways of counting the sugar input of the ingredients of a recipe. It is mostly aimed at gelato makers, but should also provide valuable insights to those who only enjoy theirs.

A bit of background

Gelato as we know it wouldn’t exist without sugar. It is true that today it is perfectly possible to make delicious gelato without any added sugar, but the sweet stuff has been one of the three crucial ingredients of gelato making for centuries.

One day I will write an in-depth article about sugar, but today lets stick to the fundamentals for the sake of focus:

• What is sugar? the answer will vary depending on whom you ask, but for practical purposes we will stick to the most widely accepted description of sugars as 'simple soluble carbohydrates of the type mono or disaccharide, found in food', as provided by the European Food Safety Authority. Making this clear is important for two reasons: a) it makes us realise that there are many more sugars than just sucrose (the technical name for table sugar); b) it helps us determine what we are not considering sugar: polyols (i.e. sweeteners); and complex carbohydrates (i.e. hydrolised starches of the oligosaccharide type)
• Where do we find sugars? In more foods than you think. The first thing that comes to mind are fruits of course, but it can also be naturally found in vegetables, pulses and even nuts. Unbeknownst to many though, a lot of processed foods these days - even savoury ones (i.e. barbecue sauce and tomato soup) - have added sugar. So in fact you are probably ingesting much more sugar on a daily basis than you think.
• Is sugar bad for you? Well, as a carbohydrate, sugar is one of the three key human macronutrients. So eating sugar is perfectly in line with a natural, balanced diet . But as the adage goes, the difference between the poison and the medicine lies in the dosage. A reasonable intake of quality sugars will provide you with readily available energy to zap around and/or keep your brain running, while too much of it will put your metabolism off and eventually lead to chronic diseases (i.e. obesity, diabetes).
• Natural vs. added sugar. A key factor in defining the quality of a sugar is its type. Naturally occurring sugars are, expectedly, generally easier on the body's metabolism, while industrially processed sugars tend to be a little nastier. In general, dietary recommendations refer to the amount of processed sugar in a diet. I will use the World Health Organisation's term intrinsic sugar for those naturally occurring in food (i.e. fruits) and the term added sugar to everything else, irrespective of source.

Lastly, it is also important to clarify the functions sugar performs in our gelato, because there is more to carbohydrates than meets the eye.

• Sugar's first function is obvious: it makes things sweet (duh!).
• But it also plays sexy games with water, lowering its freezing point. By way of reference, 100gr of sucrose mixed in 1 litre of water will cause it to freeze at -0.54ºC instead of 0ºC (at sea level), while with the same amount of fructose it will do so at -1.03ºC. This is important because without sugar, you would have a block of ice in your freezer instead of that silky luscious cream you can't help but eat compulsively.
• And finally, different sugars blend with other stuff in different ways, influencing a mix's viscosity, texture and crystallisation, among others. That's why, in order to achieve that irresistible heaven-like texture we all love, expert gelato chefs judiciously blend different types of sugars in their recipes.

So now you know what sugar is and that there is more to it than making things sweet. With that extra bit in our knowledge chest, lets get on with checking how much sugar there is in our gelato.

A sweet list

In theory you could make gelato from just a few very basic ingredients (milk, cream, table sugar, and a flavouring). But as we have seen above, sugar plays many key roles in gelato making, and different sugars do so differently. Therefore, knowing their sugars is crucial for anyone pretending to make authentic gelato, whether at home or professionally.

That full article on sugars will come one day, but in the meanwhile and as an introduction, below is a table with the most common sugars and some of their characteristics.

The sugars most commonly used in gelato making are:

• Sucrose: a disaccharide (i.e. composed of two carbohydrate molecules), and by far the most used. It is easily available, inexpensive, neutral in flavour and colour, and has a medium level of sweetness and freezing point depression power (FPDP);
• Dextrose: a monosaccharide, also very common. It is more expensive than sucrose, but less sweet and with a higher FPDP. It increases mix viscosity and helps prevent recrystallisation;
• Glucose syrup: a blend of saccharides, also called confectioner’s sugar. More expensive than both above, it can be found in liquid or powder (dry) forms with a lower sweetness and FPDP per total solid mass. It is used to smoothen the texture, help prevent recrystallisation and provide bulk. Not all its solids are sugars, so it is normally sold with an indication of Dextrose Equivalence (DE): for example, 42DE means 42% of solids are sugars;
• Maltodextrin: another blend of saccharides. It has even lower sweetness and FPDP than glucose syrup, but helps smoothen the texture, improve mouthfeel and provide bulk.

Case Study

Now that we know a little bit more about the sugars that can make their way into a gelato, let's crack on with the main topic of this article and figure out how much sugar we have in an example gelato recipe.

First things first, the recipe:

Looking at the list, some ingredients containing sugars stand out and are easy to spot, such as sucrose, dextrose and dry glucose syrup. But how much sugar is there in each of them? And is there any other ingredient that also contains sugar?

Lets have a look.

Gelato breakdown

Don’t worry, this is not the emotional type of breakdown, we will only look into the composition of each ingredient :)

For this, our best ally is a nutrition facts table. Whenever available, I prefer to use the product's nutrition table but in the absence of that, I often use this source. With a quick search we can find that the following ingredients contain sugar:

• Milk: 4.9% lactose
• Cream: 2.8% lactose
• SMP: 54.5% lactose

With regards to the added sugars, there are two aspects to consider: a) the proportion of solids in the total weight (powders can contain a bit of moisture); and b) the proportion of the total solids that are actually sugar.

This information can usually be found in the products label or in the online source mentioned above.

After checking those in the recipe we come out with:

• Sucrose: 100% solids, of which 100% are sugars
• Dextrose: 92% solids, of which 100% are sugars
• Dry glucose syrup 38DE: 96% solids, 38% of which equivalent to sugars.

Bravo! We are now ready to build a table and calculate the sugar content of our recipe:

So in this recipe we have 227 grams of sugar out of 1,000. Further, we can see that of these, 58 grams are intrinsic and 169 added. Now we can prepare an amounts statement:

• 23% total sugars, of which
• 6% are intrinsic sugars
• 17% are added sugars

The distinction between intrinsic and added is important, because different jurisdictions have different food labelling rules. In the EU, where I am based, we are obliged to list the whole sugar content of a product (i.e. both intrinsic and added), whereas in other jurisdictions only the added sugar is required.

In any case, irrespective of the rules where you live, with what you learned today you will be able to confidently list the sugar quantities in your gelato and make sure you get it right.

Bravo!

Wrapping up

So there you have it. You now have a pretty good idea of the sugar composition of a recipe and how to calculate it.

In a nutshell:

1. Sugars are carbohydrates of the mono and disaccharide types that can be found in a variety of foods. Given growing concerns about the negative impact of unbalanced diets on health, it is paramount to know the amount of sugar in our recipes to keep its intake within recommended levels, and/or to comply with local Food Safety regulations.
2. Different sugars are used in gelato making due to the specific functions they perform (sweetening, reducing water's freezing point, improving structure and texture). Some gelato ingredients contain naturally occurring sugars, which must also be taken into account.
3. By checking the sugar content of each ingredient in a nutrition facts table we are able to calculate the total amount of sugars in a recipe, and also the proportion of intrinsic (i.e. naturally occurring) sugars versus added sugars.

A presto!!