It’s a new way to suppress your appetite. And by so doing, help you lose weight. But I’m not sure it’s something kids should be getting their hands on. And I fear Japan’s new ‘gel-in-your-stomach’ soda will cause more problems than it solves…
It’s called In Tansan. ‘In’ is the brand, and ‘Tansan’ is the product name. It’s débuted in two fruit flavours – lemon and grapefruit, and is available in sweetened and ‘dry’ versions. But it’s main ingredient is a substance that transforms into a gel in your stomach to make you feel full…
Sound logic
It’s a simple idea based on sound logic. If your stomach feels full, you’ll stop eating. And if it feels full longer, you’ll snack less. Enter In Tansan, a ‘soda’-sector beverage with a twist.
‘Tansan’, we’re advised, is Japanese for ‘carbonated’, or ‘bubbly’. And that’s the way it goes down. Just like conventional soda / soft drinks. But when it reaches your stomach, it reacts with your digestive juices to form a gel. And this gel just tits there – longer than most normal foods would – making you feel full without contributing a lot of calories to your intake.
In fact, In Tansan Lemon is billed as just ’18 Calories’ per standard can, while Dry Grapefruit has ‘zero Calories’. The gel is a nutrition-neutral substance that just passes through your system slowly and harmlessly with – ideally – no effects at all.
Not a new idea
We heard about the basic principle behind this new product at least a year or so ago. And many have been waiting eagerly to see what kind of product would emerge form the commercial development process.
My first impression of In Tansan is dominated by the fact that it’s a carbonated beverage. I assumed the gel substance would be pre-gelled, and slide down the gullet like a shake. Or, perhaps, a thin-Jello-like ‘slime’. But it turns out the bubbles do more than just make the beverage more palatable. They are designed to become trapped in the gel as it forms and expand the space-filling mass. Making it all the more effective as an appetite suppressant.
Some caveats…
My first thought was: What if folks take In Tansan’s resemblance to regular soda too literally? Or mistake it for a regular fizzy quencher” They might be putting themselves in a position where they are eating less than they should.
And kids, especially might find the stuff enticing as a result of it’s novelty factor. And kids, especially, need to consume an adequate diet to fuel their growth and development. If In Tansan – for whatever reason – goes viral with kids and adolescents, we might find a generation of stunted, or waif-like young adults showing up in a few years.
Another potential down side that occurred to me was, folks prone to eating disorders might latch on to In Tansan as a way to consume ‘food’ while ‘eating’ minimally. Because of the way the stuff works, they might end up in worse shape than they would following a classic anorexic regime.
And what about otherwise normal folks who overindulge in In Tansan hoping to accelerate their wright loss? They stand to suffer undernourishment, at the very least, if not outright malnutrition. I’ve seen nothing in the available ‘literature’ to indicate that In Tansan is fortified in any way with essential nutrients, vitamins or minerals…
My take
If In Tansan is truly intended primarily as a weight loss aid, perhaps it should be placed in a special category, as a ‘supplement’, or recommended as part of a doctor-guided weight loss regime. Ditto if – as some have suggested – it’s used to help diabetics helpcontrol their blood sugar, by limiting their intake of added sugars and carbs.
Overall, it seems to me that awareness of the inherent dangers of products such as In Tansan needs to be heightened considerably, and fast. This new concept in weight loss ‘therapy’ could stand a lot more ‘talking up’ in social media and by doctors and nutrition experts if the associated serious issues are to be averted.
Early reports say the first production run of In Tansan sold out on Amazon Japan almost as soon at it appears. I fear a lot of those ‘instant fans’ may leaping before they look closely enough at the new concept…
~ Maggie J.