Assessment of the caffeine-containing beverages available in the local markets, and development of a real energy drink based on the date fruit

Heba Sayed MOSTAFA

doi:10.1590/fst.51820

Abstract

Globally, tea, coffee, soft and energy drinks are daily consumed as a source of caffeine. Energy drinks gained a great public and scientific issues, thus this study assessed the caffeine content in some caffeine-containing beverages. Given the increasing demand for newly formulated healthy drinks, the date fruit (Phoenix dactylifera L. cv. Siwi) was used to develop a fruit-energy drink as an alternative for the energy drinks. Results displayed that the coffee addition even to 80 mg/250 mL, did not significantly altered the acidity of the final developed drink. It contained rapidly metabolized sugars of 27.86 g/250 mL without added sugar and was slightly neutral (pH = 6.04). The sensory assessment revealed that the added coffee (up to 320 mg/L) enhanced its aroma and taste but negatively affected the color. The high naturally occurring vitamins and minerals content and the gross energy; made this drink a super energy drink to fulfill the needs of athletes. Some of the tested local caffeine-containing beverages contained caffeine higher than those mentioned on the product label. On the other side, Turkish coffee brews contained 1.99-9.46 mg/g and the instant coffees had provided the highest ever caffeine (24.71 mg/g), such that their daily consumption should be alarmed.

Highlights

In the recent years, an increasing number of caffeinecontaining beverages’ consumers have been reported due to the overpopulation and long and inconvenient working hours (Jahrami et al, 2020)
All the soft cola samples collected in this study have undisclosed caffeine content in their label
The caffeine ranged from 0.02 to 0.32 mg/mL and the highest value was contained in C3 sample, while the cheapest national sample (C4) contains the lowest caffeine content (5.08 mg/can) with a significant differences (p ≤ 0.05)

Summary

Introduction

An increasing number of caffeinecontaining beverages’ consumers have been reported due to the overpopulation and long and inconvenient working hours (Jahrami et al, 2020). It has gained more attention due to its physiological effect (Enyart et al, 2020) It activates the nervous system and consequence can temporarily increases the risk of miscarriage, disrupts sleep, causes vasoconstriction and increases the risk for myocardial ischemia (Temple et al, 2017), and upsurges the blood flow and blood pressure (de Paula & Farah, 2019). Due to those potential effects of caffeine-containing drinks, it is important to ascertain their exact caffeine content (Al-Bratty et al, 2020). In Egypt, most studies (Tayel et al, 2018; El-Nimr et al, 2019) concluded that, the intake of caffeinecontaining drinks among the population was very high and exceeded the safe level (≥ 200 mg/day), as 61.4% are drinking at least one caffeinated drink per day

Methods

Results

Conclusion