Sweetness Without Sugar: Exploring Sugar Substitutes
Many people love sweet treats like candy and soda. But eating too much sugar can cause problems like cavities and weight gain. Sugar substitutes are ingredients that taste sweet with little or no sugar. They let us enjoy sweetness without all the calories or blood sugar spikes from regular sugar. This blog post will explore different sugar substitutes in simple terms. We will look at how they work, examples like stevia and sucralose, and some new innovations in the sweetener world.
Different no-calorie sweetener packets have different colors: Equal® (blue, contains aspartame), Sweet’n Low® (pink, contains saccharin), and Splenda® (yellow, contains sucralose). These packets are common on restaurant tables. They let people sweeten coffee or tea without adding sugar. Each packet uses a sugar substitute to give sweetness with few or zero calories.
How Do Sugar Substitutes Work?
Sugar substitutes trick our taste buds. Our tongue has tiny receptors that sense sweetness. Sugar isn’t the only thing that can activate these receptors. Many other substances can also taste sweet. Sugar substitutes are molecules that fit the sweet taste receptors on your tongue. They send a sweet signal to your brain. The key difference is that most substitutes are not used by our bodies as fuel the same way sugar is. Some substitutes cannot be broken down for energy. Others are used so slowly or in such tiny amounts that they add almost no calories. This means you get the sweet taste without the extra energy (calories) or tooth decay that sugar can cause.
Another benefit is that many sugar substitutes do not raise blood sugar levels. This is helpful for people who need to watch their blood sugar, like those with diabetes. For example, allulose is a type of sugar substitute that our body absorbs but then passes out in urine without using it as fuel. This way, it doesn’t act like normal sugar in our bloodstream.
There are many kinds of sugar substitutes. Some come from natural sources (plants), and some are made by scientists in a lab. Below, we will go through some common examples and how they are made.
Stevia – Sweetness from a Leaf
Stevia rebaudiana is a plant with sweet leaves. The sweet compounds from its leaves are extracted to make stevia sweetener. Stevia is a popular natural sugar substitute that comes from a plant native to South America. People have used stevia leaves for sweetness for hundreds of years. Today, companies extract the sweet part of the leaves to make purified stevia sweeteners.
Stevia sweeteners are very sweet – about 200 to 350 times sweeter than sugar. This means a tiny bit of stevia can sweeten as much as a spoonful of sugar. Because it’s so sweet, stevia is often mixed with other ingredients (like a sugar alcohol called erythritol) to dilute it for cooking. You might see stevia sold under brand names like Truvia®, Pure Via®, Stevia in the Raw®, or SweetLeaf®. These packets or drops use stevia extract to provide sweetness. Stevia has zero calories because our bodies do not digest the sweet compounds (called steviol glycosides). After we consume stevia, it mostly passes through without raising blood sugar.
To make stevia sweetener, manufacturers steep the dried leaves in water and purify the extract. This removes any bitter flavors and leaves a very sweet extract. New technologies even use fermentation (using yeast) to produce some stevia compounds in a lab for better taste. Stevia is now found in many “diet” or “zero sugar” drinks and foods as a natural sweet option.
Monk Fruit – Sweetness from a Fruit
Monk fruit is another natural sugar substitute. Monk fruit (also called luo han guo) is a small round melon from southern China. The fruit itself is very sweet but not usually eaten fresh. Instead, producers make an extract from it to use as a sweetener. Monk fruit’s sweetness comes from natural compounds in the fruit called mogrosides. These mogrosides can be 100 to 250 times sweeter than sugar! That means monk fruit sweetener is extremely sweet, so only a little is needed.
To make monk fruit sweetener, manufacturers take out the seeds and skin, crush the fruit, and filter the liquid. The sweet parts (mogrosides) are then dried into a powder. The result is a very sweet, no-calorie powder. Often, monk fruit extract is mixed with erythritol (a zero-calorie sweetener that looks like sugar crystals) to make it easier to use in recipes. This blend looks and measures more like regular sugar.
There are several brands of monk fruit sweeteners, such as Monk Fruit In The Raw®, Lakanto®, and Splenda® Monk Fruit. Like stevia, monk fruit adds sweetness without calories. Our bodies do not break down mogrosides for energy, so monk fruit does not raise blood sugar or give us calories. It’s another great option to sweeten drinks, yogurt, or oatmeal in a healthy way.
Sucralose – Sugar Made Smarter
Not all sugar substitutes come from plants. Some are artificial sweeteners, made by scientists. Sucralose is a very common artificial sweetener. It was discovered in a lab and is the key sweet ingredient in Splenda® (the yellow packets). Fun fact: Sucralose is actually made from regular sugar (sucrose) through a special chemical process. Chemists modify the sugar molecule by replacing three of its hydroxyl groups (parts of the molecule) with chlorine atoms. This changes the structure so that our bodies cannot recognize it as sugar to burn for energy. But the molecule still activates our sweet taste buds.
Sucralose is extremely sweet – about 600 times sweeter than sugar. Because it is so sweet, Splenda packets actually mix sucralose with bulking agents (like maltodextrin) so that one packet has about the sweetness of two teaspoons of sugar. Even then, a packet of Splenda has very few calories (about 3 calories) because so little sucralose is needed. In pure form, sucralose has 0 calories since our bodies mostly do not absorb or use it.
Splenda (and generic sucralose sweeteners) are popular for sweetening coffee, tea, and for baking. Sucralose is heat-stable, meaning it can be used in cooking and baking without losing sweetness. It’s found in many sugar-free desserts, canned fruits, and even syrups. Sucralose has been approved as safe by health authorities, and it’s a go-to choice for an easy sugar swap. Just remember that it is artificial, created by scientists to give sweetness without sugar’s calories.
(Other artificial sweeteners exist too, like aspartame in Equal® (blue packets) and saccharin in Sweet’n Low® (pink packets). These have been used for decades. Sucralose is one of the newer artificial sweeteners and is very widely used.)
Allulose – A Rare “Sugar” You Can Eat
Allulose is an exciting newer sugar substitute. It is actually a sugar, but it’s a special kind that is very rare in nature. Allulose is found in tiny amounts in foods like figs, raisins, and wheat. Chemically, it is almost the same as fructose (a sugar in fruit and honey) but with a slightly different arrangement of atoms. This difference means our body treats allulose differently than regular sugar.
Allulose tastes about 70% as sweet as table sugar. It also has a very similar taste and texture to sugar, which makes it great for recipes. However, allulose has only about 1/10th the calories of sugar. In other words, 1 gram of sugar has about 4 calories, but 1 gram of allulose has roughly 0.4 calories. This is because, although allulose can be absorbed in our digestive tract, our bodies do not metabolize (use) most of it for energy. Most of the allulose we eat exits the body unused in urine.
Originally, getting allulose from natural foods was very hard (since it’s present only in small amounts). Thanks to new technology, manufacturers found a way to make allulose from fructose (fruit sugar) using enzymes. In factories, they start with corn starch or beet sugar, convert it to fructose, then use a special enzyme to turn fructose into allulose. This enzymatic process produces allulose on a larger scale.
Allulose is now showing up as a sweetener in things like low-calorie ice cream, protein bars, and keto-friendly syrups. It is not yet as common on store shelves as stevia or sucralose, but it’s gaining popularity. One reason is that the FDA (in the United States) decided that allulose does not need to be counted as sugar on nutrition labels, due to its unique effects on the body. This is good news for companies wanting to create “sugar-free” or low-sugar products that still taste sweet.
New Sweet Ideas: Rare Sugars and Sweet Proteins
The quest for the perfect sugar substitute is ongoing. Scientists and food makers are always looking for new ways to reduce sugar in foods while keeping sweetness. Here are a couple of new innovations in the sugar substitute space:
- Rare Sugars: Allulose is one rare sugar that we discussed. Another rare sugar is tagatose. Tagatose is found in small amounts in dairy products and some fruits. It has about 90% of the sweetness of sugar but only around 38% of the calories. That makes it much lower in calories than regular sugar. Tagatose can also behave like sugar in recipes (providing browning and texture), which is a big advantage. Companies are developing cheaper ways to produce tagatose in large quantities, such as using enzymes on starch from corn or other sources. In the future, we might see tagatose used in candies and cereals as a lower-calorie sugar replacement.
- Sweet Proteins: Imagine a protein that tastes super sweet! Some fruits in the world contain proteins that are extremely sweet. One example is brazzein, from a West African fruit called Oubli. Brazzein is 500 to 2,000 times sweeter than sugar. It has almost no calories because it’s just a protein. It also doesn’t raise blood sugar. The challenge is getting enough of these proteins, since you can’t easily farm tons of those exotic fruits. Here’s where technology helps: companies use precision fermentation (like brewing beer, but with yeast making protein) to produce sweet proteins. They take the gene that makes brazzein and put it into yeast. The yeast then ferments and creates the sweet protein, which can be purified for use. In simple terms, tiny microbes act like factories to make these sweet molecules. Sweet proteins could sweeten foods like yogurt or chocolate with a taste closer to sugar but without the negatives. This is a cutting-edge area of sweetener research.
- Other Innovations: Some companies are exploring turning plant fibers into sweet sugars using enzymes, or creating new blends of sweeteners to mimic sugar’s taste and texture better. Others are improving sugar alcohols and finding ways to use natural extracts (like from maple or fruits) to enhance sweetness without sugar. There’s even a berry called the “miracle fruit” that isn’t sweet itself but makes sour foods taste sweet – a different approach to reduce sugar by changing our taste perception.
As you can see, the world of sugar substitutes is full of creativity. From leaves and fruits to labs and fermenting yeast, many paths lead to sweet flavor. These substitutes help us enjoy sweet foods with less sugar. Remember, even with substitutes, it’s good to enjoy sweets in moderation. But it’s exciting to know there are many options to satisfy a sweet tooth in a smarter way!
References
- Food Insight. “Everything You Need To Know About Stevia Sweeteners.” FoodInsight.org.
- Food Insight. “Everything You Need To Know About Monk Fruit Sweeteners.” FoodInsight.org.
- Healthline. “Allulose: What It Is, Benefits, Risks, and More.” Healthline.com.
- Healthline. “Sucralose (Splenda): What It Is and Side Effects.” Healthline.com.
- GreenQueen. “Oobli Earns FDA GRAS for Gut & Diabetic-Friendly Sweet Protein.” (2023)
- AgFunderNews. “Tagatose, a rare sugar with 92% of the sweetness of sugar and 38% of the calories.” (2024)
