Contents
Sugar, as is now known to almost everyone who is interested in a healthy diet, has many harmful properties. First, sugar is “empty” calories, which is especially unpleasant for losing weight. It can hardly fit all the indispensable substances within the allotted calories. Secondly, sugar is absorbed immediately, i.e. has a very high glycemic index (GI), which is very harmful to diabetics and people with reduced insulin sensitivity or metabolic syndrome. It is also known that sugar provokes increased appetite and overeating for fat people.
So for a long time, people have used various substances with a sweet taste, but not having all or some of the harmful properties of sugar. Experimentally confirmed the assumption that the replacement of sugar sweeteners leads to weight reduction. Today we will tell you what types of sweeteners are the most common modern sweeteners, noting their features.
Let’s start with the terminology and the main types of substances related to sweeteners. There are two categories of substances that replace sugar.
- The first substance is often called sugar substitutes. These are usually carbohydrates or similar by the structure substances, often naturally occurring, which have a sweet taste and same calorie, but much more slowly digested. Thus, they are much safer than sugar, and many of them can even be used by diabetics. But still, they are not much different from sugar in sweetness and caloric content.
- The second group of substances, essentially different in structure from the sugar, with negligible calorie content, and actually carrying only the taste. They are sweeter than sugar in the tens, hundreds, or thousands of times.
We will briefly explain what does it is mean by “sweeter in N times”. This means that in “blind” experiments, people are comparing the different dilution solutions of sugar and the test substance, determine at what concentration the sweetness of analyte equivalent to their taste, by the sweetness of sugar solution.
Relative concentrations conclude sweets. Actually, this is not always the exact number, the sensations can influence, for example, the temperature or the degree of dilution. And some sweeteners in the mixture give a greater sweetness than individually, and so often in beverages producers are using several different sweeteners
Fructose.
The most famous of the substitutes of natural origin. Formally has the same caloric value as sugar, but the much smaller GUY (~20). However, fructose is approximately 1.7 times sweeter than sugar, respectively, reduces the calorific value by 1.7 times. Normally absorbed. Absolutely safe: it is enough to mention that we all daily eat tens of grams of fructose along with apples or other fruits. Also, recall that common sugar inside of us first, falls apart into glucose and fructose, i.e. eating 20 grams of sugar, we eat 10 g of glucose and 10 g fructose.
Maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol
Polyhydric alcohols, similar to sugars in structure and possessing a sweet taste. All of them, with the exception of erythritol, partially digested therefore have a lower caloric content than sugar. Most of them have such a low GI that can be used by diabetics.
However, they have the nasty side: undigested substances are food for some bacteria of the bowel, so high doses (>30-100 g) can lead to bloating, diarrhea, and other troubles. Erythritol is almost completely absorbed, but in an unchanged form is excreted by the kidneys. Here they are in comparison:
| Substance | The sweetness sugar | Calorie, kcal/100g | Maximum daily dose, g |
| Sorbitol (E420) | 0.6 | 2.6 | 30-50 |
| Xylitol (E967) | 0.9 | 2.4 | 30-50 |
| Maltitol (E965) | 0.9 | 2.4 | 50-100 |
| Erythritol (E968) | 0.6-0.7 | 0.2 | 50 |
All sweeteners are also good because do not serve as food for the bacteria dwelling in the oral cavity, and are therefore used in the “safe for teeth” chewing gum. But the problem of calories is not removed, unlike with sweeteners.
Sweeteners
Sweeteners are so much sweeter than sugar, such as aspartame or Sucralose. Their calorie content is negligible when used in normal quantities.
The most commonly used sweeteners we have listed in the table below, putting some of the features. Some of the sweeteners are not there (cyclamate E952, E950 Acesulfame), as they are commonly used in mixes, added to ready-made drinks, and, accordingly, we do not have a choice, how much and where to add them.
| Substance | The sweetness sugar | Quality of taste | Features |
| Saccharin (E954) | 400 | Metallic taste, the finish | The cheapest (at the moment) |
| Stevia and derivatives (E960) | 250-450 | Bitter taste bitter aftertaste | Natural origin |
| Neotame (E961) | 10000 | Not available in Russia (at the time of publication) | |
| Aspartame (E951) | 200 | Weak aftertaste | Natural for humans. Not withstand the heat. |
| Sucralose (E955) | 600 | Clean taste of sugar, the finish is missing | Safe in any quantities. Dear. |
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Saccharin.
One of the oldest sweeteners. Opened in the late nineteenth century. One time was under suspicion of Carcinogenicity (80-ies), but all suspicions were dropped, and it is still being sold worldwide. Allows the use in canned foods and hot drinks. The disadvantage is noticeable when large doses. The “metal” taste and aftertaste. Add cyclamate or Acesulfame saccharin to greatly reduce these disadvantages.
Due to the longstanding popularity and cheapness so far we have it as one of the most popular sweeteners. Don’t worry, after reading online another “study” about the “awful consequences” of its use: so far, none of the experiments revealed the danger of adequate doses of saccharin for losing weight, (in very large doses it can affect the intestinal microflora), but the cheapest competitor is an obvious target for an attack on the marketing front.
Stevia and stevioside
This sweetener obtained by extraction from herbs of the genus stevia actually stevia contain several different chemical substances having sweet taste:
- 5-10% stevioside (sweet sugar: 250-300)
- 2-4% rebaudioside A — most sweet (350-450) and least bitter
- 1-2% rebaudioside C
- ½ –1% dulcoside A.
One time stevia was under suspicion of mutagenicity, but a few years ago, the bans on it in Europe and most countries were removed. However, so far in the U.S. as a food additive stevia is not entirely resolved, but is allowed to be used as the additive (E960) only purified rebaudioside or stevioside.
Despite the fact that the taste of stevia is among the worst of modern sweeteners — it has a bitter taste and a serious finish, it is very popular, as it has a natural origin. And although the person glycosides of stevia are totally alien substance that is “natural” for most people, not versed in chemistry, is synonymous with the word “security” and “usefulness”. their safety.
Therefore, stevia can now be bought without a problem, although it cost much more expensive than saccharin. Allows for use in hot drinks and baking.
Aspartame
Officially in use from 1981, Characterized by the fact that, unlike most modern sweeteners that are alien to the body, aspartame is completely metabolized (included in metabolism). In the body it breaks down into phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol, all three of these substances are present in large amounts in our daily food and in our body.
In particular, compared to aspartame soda, orange juice has more methanol and more milk phenylalanine and aspartic acid. So if someone will prove that aspartame is harmful, at the same time he will have to prove that half or more harmful is fresh orange juice or three times more harmful organic yogurt.
Despite this, the marketing war has not passed him by, and regular rubbish sometimes falls on the head of a potential consumer. It should be noted, however, that the maximum allowable dose for aspartame is relatively small, although much higher than the reasonable needs (these are hundreds of pills per day).
Taste is noticeably superior to aspartame and stevia, and saccharin — he has almost no aftertaste, and the aftertaste is not really significant. However, there is a serious disadvantage of aspartame compared to them — not allowed heating.
Sucralose
More new product for us, although it was opened in 1976, and officially authorized in different countries since 1991.. Sweeter than sugar 600 times. Has many advantages over the above-described sweeteners:
- best taste (almost indistinguishable from sugar, no aftertaste)
- allows the heat applied in baking
- biologically inert (do not react in living organisms, intact displays)
- the huge margin of safety (at operating doses of tens of milligrams, is theoretically estimated in experiments on animals safe amount is not even grams, but somewhere in the area of half a Cup of pure Sucralose)
The disadvantage is only one – the price. Partly perhaps this can be explained by the fact that while in all countries Sucralose actively replaces other types of sweeteners. And since we are moving to more and more new products, we will mention the last one of them, which appeared relatively recently:
Neotame
A new sweetener, sweeter than sugar in 10000(!) again (for the understanding: in such doses of cyanide — it is a safe substance). Similar in structure to aspartame, it is metabolized to the same components, only the dose is 50 times less. Allowed for heating. Because it actually combines the advantages of all other sweeteners, it is possible that it will someday take its place. At the moment, although it is allowed in different countries, very few people have seen it.
So what is better, how to understand?
The most important thing to understand is that
- all permitted sweeteners safe in adequate quantities
- all sweeteners (and especially cheap) are objects of marketing wars (including producers of sugar), and the number of lies about them is significantly higher than the limits in which it is possible to understand for the ordinary consumer
- choose what you like best, it will be the best option.
We will only summarize the above with comments about popular myths:
- Saccharin is the cheapest, most familiar, and very common sweetener. It is easy to get everywhere, and if the taste suits you, it is the most affordable in every sense of the replacement of sugar.
- If you are willing to sacrifice other qualities of the product to make sure that it is “natural”, choose stevia. But still understand that the neutrality and safety are not related.
- If you want the most researched and probably safe sweetener — choose aspartame. All the substances it breaks down in the body are the same as from usual food. Only here for baking, aspartame is not good.
- If you need superior quality sweetener — compliance with the taste of sugar, and important theoretical maximum supply security — choose Sucralose. It is more expensive, but maybe for you, it will be worth the money. Try.
That’s all you need to know about sweeteners. And the most important knowledge is that sweeteners help fat people to lose weight and if you can’t give up the sweet taste, the sweetener is of your choice.
For more about sweeteners watch the video below:
Are Artificial Sweeteners SAFE?? Stevia, Monk Fruit, Aspartame, Swerve, Splenda & MORE!
