Meaningful snacking? Is the licorice snacking rather healthy or unhealthy?

Liquorice is also healthy?
For some, liquorice is considered a natural medicine product. Others point out that liquorice can lead to drug interactions. What is true and what is myth? Is licorice really healthy? Or even harmful? Andrea Danitschek from the Consumer Advice Center Bavaria gives answers.

Many love sweets with licorice, others can win little from the idiosyncratic taste. The basis for licorice products is an extract of liquorice roots. The black mass is mixed with other ingredients such as sugar, starch, gelatin and salmiak.

Pregnant women and people with hypertension should only enjoy liquorice in moderation. A vegetable substance contained in it can influence the water and salt balance in the human body. (Image: Antonio Gravante / fotolia.com)

Also colors and flavors are added. Depending on the recipe, mild-sweet to bitter-salty products are produced. "What is so special about licorice root is that it contains glycyrrhizin, a medicinally active plant compound," says Andrea Danitschek of the Bavarian consumer association. Extracts from licorice root are used, for example, for gastrointestinal complaints, respiratory diseases or as a cough remover.

Since glycyrrhizin can also affect the water and salt balance during degradation in the human body, liquorice should only be consumed in moderation. "Especially with high blood pressure and during pregnancy care is needed," says Andrea Danitschek. So-called liquorice with an increased content of glycyrrhizin therefore carries the warning "contains licorice - in case of high blood pressure, excessive consumption of this product should be avoided". (Sb)