Liquorice xylitol pastilles 100 g

What is Liquorice and Liquorice Powder?
Liquorice is used for its sweet taste as a sweetening and flavoring agent in food, tobacco, and pharmaceutical products. The liquorice plant grows to about 1 meter in height, and its roots are used to produce liquorice powder. Liquorice plants are cultivated, and the roots are harvested after about three years of growth, from which licorice powder is produced by grinding, extracting, and freeze-drying.

The sweetness of liquorice powder comes from glycyrrhizin, or licorice acid, which makes up about 10-25% of the liquorice. Liquorice acid is approximately 50 times sweeter than regular sucrose (Kondo et al., 2007). Licorice powder also contains many plant secondary metabolites such as flavonoids, saponins, isoflavonoids, and coumarins, among others, which have been studied for their effects on humans, especially in various licorice-based herbal products. Licorice has also been extensively researched in terms of oral hygiene (Sidhu et al., 2020).

Licorice in Candies and Xylitol Pastilles
Liquorice powder is used in licorice candies at about 10-20% of the product's composition, whereas in xylitol products, the amount of liquorice powder is around 1-3% of the total product weight. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has defined that liquorice acid can make up to 16% of the weight in hard candies. The downside of licorice acid for health is that large amounts can raise blood pressure with regular use and cause hypokalemia (a reduction in potassium levels in the body). The use of liquorice, especially during pregnancy, is not recommended (Duodecim, 2017).

References

Duodecim (2017) Lakritsia syytä välttää raskauden aikana – voi vaikuttaa lapsen kehitykseen. Uutispalvelu Duodecim, American American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 185, Issue 5, 1 March 2017.

Kondo K, Shiba M, Nakamura R, Morota T, Shoyama Y. Constituent properties of licorices derived from Glycyrrhiza uralensis, G. glabra, or G. inflata identified by genetic information. Biol Pharm Bull 2007;30:p.1271-1277.

Sidhu P, Shankargouda S, Rath A, Ramamurthy PH, Fernandes B ja Singh AK (2020) Therapeutic benefits of liquorice in dentistry: Review Article. J Ayurveda Integr Med, 11, 82-88