Better Sweetner Choices
New Natural Sweeteners
After water, tea and coffee are the most consumed beverages in the world. Consumers add sweetening to enhance their beverage experience and full-sugar beverages provide more calories than consumers need at the end of the day. Increasingly, customers are looking to reduce the amount of sugar in their diet without experiencing a compromise in taste or performance. We take a closer look at how sweetener trends have evolved over 50 years.
Move from calorific to non-calorific natural sweeteners
At the dawn of the 21st century, a new corn-based sweetener called high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) began gaining popularity as an alternative to sucrose in many foods and beverages. However, HFCS has also received attention regarding possible adverse health consequences, with some even calling it “a major contributor to obesity”. Ironically, at this time there were also several popular television commercials that played down the role of HFCS in obesity and pointed out other important factors like portion control and exercise. Finishing out the first decade of this millennium we have seen a strong resurgence in recent years for the use of more nature-identical alternatives to sucrose such as stevia, erythritol and monk fruit, which are all being produced naturally without chemical solvents and offer a very pleasant taste profile.
A little Help from the real thing!
The Coca-Cola Company is actively developing sweeteners that are both safe and taste great. These sweeteners will help people enjoy a wider variety of beverages with less or zero calories and/or carbohydrate, without compromising on taste and mouthfeel.
This move from Coke to bring lower calorie options into the cans of the real thing has created non-nutritive sweeteners can help lower calories and potentially reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease when they replace caloric sweeteners rather than being consumed in addition to them.
Moving from Artificial to Natural Sweetener options
Natural zero calorie sweeteners have started to become more widely known and used in the past few years, but with the addition of Stevia and Monk Fruit (Luo Han Guo) to the category, you may be wondering what is best for you? At one-point, artificial sweeteners were all the rage and then there has been a shift to natural, high potency sweeteners (sometimes called ultra-sweeteners) as our knowledge of ingredients has increased. Research shows that consumers expect natural sweeteners to taste great in order to be credible with manufacturers and shoppers.
Today is a great time to be alive if you are a devotee of all things sweet. While sugar will always be the most widely used sweetener in the world, we are seeing an increase in the use of zero calorie sweeteners in both food and beverage applications. This can partially be attributed to a growing preference for healthier alternatives that fits with today’s active and on-the-go lifestyles.
Keto Diets and Worries of the Effects of Sugar:
Sugar is a sticky subject. On the one hand, it’s delicious and keeps our teeth from rotting out of our heads. On the other … well, it’s pretty much all bad for us. Even natural sugars like fruit are much more closely linked to diabetes than other foods. The drive to come up with natural alternatives to chemical sweeteners and sugar itself comes from Keto Diets and Worries of the Effects of Sugar. The move towards low carb diets, fears of sugar and a dislike of chemicals in foods have come together to drive a force to find natural low calories sweeteners.
The interest in keto diets and worries of the effects of sugar has also sparked interest in natural alternatives to chemicals. One example is Stevia. Stevia was used as an alternative to sugar when it first appeared on the market. However, there were some side effects that required a lot of research. Understanding the best low calories sweeteners will help you better understand products like stevia and what other natural sweeteners are available.
A new dawn of the Natural Sweetener
This page covers the history of natural sweeteners, including Stevia and my personal favourite (although controversial) Erythritol. It also looks at the health benefits of natural sweeteners, many of which work for a weight loss diet or a diabetic diet.
Stevia
After being a common practice in many countries around the globe for years, stevia sweeteners are now increasingly relevant to North American and European consumers and food manufacturers. Stevia is a calorie-free natural high potency sweetener that offers numerous benefits over artificial sweeteners including no artificial chemicals, intense sweetness and non-bitter aftertastes often associated with Rebaudiosides such as Rebaudioside A.v.
Stevia sweeteners for your coffee or tea has been a common practice in several countries around the world for years. In those countries, people have adapted to using stevia for the intense sweetness and aftertaste. Stevia may be an option for diabetics as it has no calories and is not artificial tasting.
Monk Fruit
Monk Fruit is a unique species of plant, only found within Guilin. It has been used in Chinese herbal literature for many centuries, particularly to treat eczema and diabetes. Today, it is most famous for producing sweet mogrosides - six times sweeter than cane sugar - that are responsible for its delicious taste.
We will update this article when more sweeteners choices become available.
