Cordial Base

Food · Drink · Food, Typed Supps

This is a syrup meant to be watered down, so the numbers on the table are about four to five times what ends up in the glass.

Stage by stage

Intake (Mouth): The concentrate is diluted with water, typically about one part to four, then swallowed with no chewing.
Stomach (Stomach): A sugar solution empties rapidly — nothing in it slows gastric emptying.
Small intestine (Small intestine): Sucrose is split to glucose and fructose and absorbed quickly, producing a sharp rise in blood glucose.
Liver and tissues (Liver): Glucose is used or stored; fructose is handled by the liver. Liquid calories are poorly compensated for at later meals.

Time to effect

Under an hour: Blood glucose rises within roughly 15 to 30 minutes, earlier and more sharply than after the same sugar eaten as fruit.

Allergens

Contains: Sulphites. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

Not scored: the satiety index is measured on 240 kcal servings, and nobody eats a 240 kcal serving of this. The question does not apply rather than the answer being unknown.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £2 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Sugars
Vitamin C

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 175
Protein: 0.1g
Carbohydrate: 45g
of which sugars: 45g
Fat: 0g
of which saturated: 0g
Fibre: 0g
Sodium: 0mg

Food vs. supplement

The vitamin C in a blackcurrant cordial is real but arrives attached to a large dose of free sugar, which makes it a poor way to meet a vitamin C requirement that a single orange or half a capsicum covers outright. There is no supplement comparison worth drawing for the rest of the family.

Kitchen tip

Diluting further than the bottle suggests works better than most people expect, because the flavour compounds carry at lower sugar concentrations than the recipe assumes. Serving it with a meal rather than sipped across an afternoon limits the dental acid exposure, which is driven by how often the teeth meet it rather than how much is drunk.

Common myth

"Higher juice percentage means a healthier cordial." In reality: The juice fraction is a labelling claim, not a sugar reduction. A 40% juice regular cordial carries a sugar load close to a 25% one, because the sweetness in both is mostly added sucrose.