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A guide to choosing the best sugars, syrups, and sweeteners for you

A guide to choosing the best sugars, syrups, and sweeteners for you

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ZERO CALORIE SWEETENERS

On my quest to discover all zero-calorie sweeteners in stores across the United States,

I found 100s of options and list them here in two groups: natural & artificial.

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WHAT IS A NATURAL SWEETENER?

Stevia | Brown & Powdered

Stevia | Brown & Powdered

Stevia Sweeteners | Brown Sugar Replacements and Powdered Sugar Replacements

Stevia | Dried Leaf

Stevia | Dried Leaf

The whole-leaf Stevia is dried, cut, and turn into a green powder. It has a very mild sweet taste and does not dissolve well. Extracts (highly refined with > or = 95% purity) from the leaf are approved by the FDA but the leaves itself are not due to inadequate toxicological information.

Stevia | with Benefits

Stevia | with Benefits

Stevia extracts offer no health benefits because the amount we eat is minuscule, but the sweeteners I list here contain ingredients that do provide health benefits – such as vitamins and fibers

Monk Fruit | Pure Extract

Monk Fruit | Pure Extract

Monk fruit, also called luo han guo fruit, is a small green fruit of the Chinese plant Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle. The sweet components in the fruit, referred to as mogrosides, are 230 to 425 times sweeter than table sugar.

Monk Fruit | Liquid

Monk Fruit | Liquid

Monk fruit, also called luo han guo fruit, is a small green fruit of the Chinese plant Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle. The sweet components in the fruit, referred to as mogrosides, are 230 to 425 times sweeter than table sugar.

Monk Fruit | with Erythritol

Monk Fruit | with Erythritol

Monk fruit, also called luo han guo fruit, is a small green fruit of the Chinese plant Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle. The sweet components in the fruit, referred to as mogrosides, are 230 to 425 times sweeter than table sugar.

Monk Fruit | with Inulin

Monk Fruit | with Inulin

Monk fruit, also called luo han guo fruit, is a small green fruit of the Chinese plant Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle. The sweet components in the fruit, referred to as mogrosides, are 230 to 425 times sweeter than table sugar.

Monk Fruit | with Glucose

Monk Fruit | with Glucose

Monk fruit, also called luo han guo fruit, is a small green fruit of the Chinese plant Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle. The sweet components in the fruit, referred to as mogrosides, are 230 to 425 times sweeter than table sugar.

Monk Fruit | with Rare Sugars

Monk Fruit | with Rare Sugars

Monk fruit, also called luo han guo fruit, is a small green fruit of the Chinese plant Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle. The sweet components in the fruit, referred to as mogrosides, are 230 to 425 times sweeter than table sugar.

Monk Fruit | Powdered & Golden

Monk Fruit | Powdered & Golden

Powdered and Brown Sugar Substitutes made with Monk Fruit Extract

Monk Fruit & Stevia Blend

Monk Fruit & Stevia Blend

Monk fruit extract blended with stevia leaf extract sweeteners

Monk Fruit | Packets

Monk Fruit | Packets

Does monk fruit come in packets, sticks, and cubes?

Erythritol

Erythritol granulated versus powdered versus blends

Allulose

Does allulose cause diarrhrea? Does allulose kick you out of ketosis?

Miracle Fruit | Dried and Tablets

Miracle Fruit | Dried and Tablets

Miracle Fruit extract (or Miraculin) is a protein extracted from the African berry, Synsepalum dulcificum (or Richardella dulcifica). It does not taste sweet but is able to transform acidic flavors into sweet. It can enhance the sweetness of low pH (acid) foods and beverages to become 200 to 800 times sweeter than table sugar.

Stevia | Pure Extract

Stevia | Pure Extract

Stevia leaf extracts are food ingredients with GRAS status. The leaf extracts go through a great deal of processing and purification until they become palatable and free of impurities. They provides zero calories and are 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar. Find here a variety of brands of pure stevia leaf extracts.

Stevia | Liquid

Stevia | Liquid

Stevia leaf extracts are food ingredients with GRAS status. The leaf extracts go through a great deal of processing and purification until they become palatable and free of impurities. They provides zero calories and are 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar. Find here brands of liquid stevia. The most common carriers include glycerine, erythitol, alcohol, and cellulose. Some are sold as dietary supplements and allow health claims on labels.

Stevia | with Erythritol

Stevia | with Erythritol

Stevia leaf extracts are food ingredients with GRAS status. The leaf extracts go through a great deal of processing and purification until they become palatable and free of impurities. They provides zero calories and are 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar. Find here a variety of brands of stevia-erythritol blend.

Stevia | with Inulin

Stevia | with Inulin

Stevia leaf extracts are food ingredients with GRAS status. The leaf extracts go through a great deal of processing and purification until they become palatable and free of impurities. They provides zero calories and are 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar. Find here a variety of brands of stevia-inulin blend.

Stevia | with Sugars

Stevia | with Sugars

Stevia leaf extracts are food ingredients with GRAS status. The leaf extracts go through a great deal of processing and purification until they become palatable and free of impurities. They provides zero calories and are 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar. Find here brands of stevia-sugar blends. Sugars used are glucose or organic raw cane sugar.

Stevia | with Maltodextrin

Stevia | with Maltodextrin

Stevia leaf extracts are food ingredients with GRAS status. The leaf extracts go through a great deal of processing and purification until they become palatable and free of impurities. They provides zero calories and are 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar. Find here brands of stevia-maltodextrin blends.

Stevia | with Xylitol

Stevia | with Xylitol

Stevia blended with Xylitol Sweeteners | Brands and Products

Stevia | with Rare Sugars

Stevia | with Rare Sugars

Stevia blended with Allulose and Tagatose | Brands and Products

Stevia | Monk Fruit Blend

Stevia | Monk Fruit Blend

Stevia is the term used to refer to steviol glycosides (highly refined extracts from the leaves of the stevia plant) Monk fruit is the term used to refer to mogrosides (extracts obtained from the luo han guo fruit)

Sugar substitutes labeled as "natural" and "zero-calories" contain sweeteners obtained from a plant. Stevia, monk fruit, thaumatin, erythritol, and allulose are FDA-approved. Based on their sweetness level compared to sugar, they fit into one of two groups: high-intensity or mildly-sweet

High-intensity sweeteners are 100s of times sweeter than table sugar. The natural ones include stevia (the term used to refer to steviol glycosides = refined extracts from the leaves of the stevia plant), monk fruit (the term used to refer to mogrosides = refined extracts from the monk fruit), and thaumatin (approved in 2020, proteins isolated from the fruit of West African Katemfe fruit). Scroll down to see the artificial ones.

Mildly-sweet carbohydrates labeled as "zero calories" are less sweet than table sugar and include erythritol (a sugar alcohol obtained from corn) and allulose (a rare sugar obtained from corn).

Miracle fruit extract (miraculin) is not an FDA-approved ingredient so you are not going to find it as a sugar substitute. It is not an actual sweetener but can enhance the sweetness of acidic foods up to 800 times. You can buy the fruit itself or the extract in tablet form. Read all about it HERE.

Find out if a sweetener claimed as "natural" meets your expectations by reading two of my blog posts:

Natural Sweetener: Not What You Might Think

5 Misconceptions About Natural Sweeteners

Natural Sweetener

High Intensity Sweeteners

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WHAT IS ARTIFICAL SWEETENER?

Sucralose

The food additive Sucralose is made from table sugar in a process that changes its configuration into a compound around 600 times sweeter with no calories.

Saccharin

The food additive Saccharin is a salt around 200 to 700 times sweeter than table sugar. It provides no calories as it is not metabolized and is excreted in urine. It has noe effect on bood glucose. It may be combined with other sweeteners (such as glucose) or bulking agents (such as maltodextrin) in commercial tabletop sweeteners.

Aspartame

The food additive Aspartame is a high intensity sweetener that, being a protein, provides 4 Calories/g. But since it can be up to 400 times sweeter than table sugar, it is used in such small amounts that contributes few to no calories. It is approved by the FDA as a nutritive sweetener.

Artificial sweeteners are not found in nature. Even if produced from a source material found in nature (such as sucralose, which is made from table sugar) OR their component parts are found in nature (such as aspartame, which is split in our bodies into 3 components widely found in foods), it does not make them a natural sweetener.

Six artificial sweeteners are approved as ingredients in sugar substitutes (find them listed below). Saccharin-based products were the first available in stores; the Sweet'N Low brand name has been the most popular. Aspartame–acesulfame K blends were popular for some time but were surpassed by sucralose, which is the most used of all six.

Only a couple of brands use neotame as an ingredient and I have not seen sweeteners containing advantage and thaumatin, the two most recently approved high-intensity sweeteners.

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WHAT'S A ZERO-CALORIE SWEETENER?

By law, a sweetener may be labeled calorie-free, no-calorie, or zero-calorie if it provides less than 5 cal per serving. One serving is often the amount of product (teaspoon, drops, squeezes) with sweetness equivalent to 1 or 2 teaspoons of table sugar.
Zero Calorie Sweeteners are available to you in various forms: granulated, powdered, sachets, cubes, tablets, liquid, and syrup. The color code for them tends to be green for stevia, yellow for sucralose, blue for aspartame, and pink for saccharin.

WHAT'S A HIGH-INTENSITY SWEETENER?

Most zero-calorie sugar substitutes you find in stores have High-Intensity Sweeteners (HIS), which deliver intense sweetness with no calories and no nutritional benefits. Being several hundred times sweeter than table sugar, they are used in a fraction of the weight of any caloric sweetener.

Because they are used in such small amounts, they have no effect on volume or mouthfeel. As a result, high-intensity sweeteners are often blended with bulk sweeteners which give them an overall resemblance to table sugar, making them spoonable & pourable, and masking their off-flavors.

As opposed to table sugar, they are used mainly for sweetening purposes and no other culinary role. Pure high-intensity sweeteners (without any additives or fillers) work best in foods that do not require sugars for texture, shelf life, moisture retention, color, and aroma.

Two sweeteners—erythritol and allulose—can be labeled as zero calories and sugar-free, but are not high-intensity sweeteners. In fact, both are less sweet than table sugar. In addition, they are NOT completely free of calories as high-intensity sweeteners. They provide about 1 to 1.5 calories per teaspoon or 40 to 70 calories per cup. Learn more about erythritol HERE and about allulose HERE.

Which high-intensity sweeteners are FDA-approved?

Nine high-intensity sweeteners (HIS) are permitted for use in food in the US. When artificial, they're regulated as a food additive. When natural, they have their use as a sweetener generally recognized as safe (GRAS). The difference is that food additives undergo premarket review and approval by the FDA. GRAS substances have their safety evaluated by experts qualified by scientific training and experience, not by the FDA.

Natural options include Stevia, monk fruit, and thaumatin. As said before, they have GRAS status and so they are not food additives. As of 2024, six artificial sweeteners have been approved: saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium (ace-K), sucralose, neotame, and advantame. Again, as opposed to the "natural" options, all of them are food additives.

Among all, aspartame and thaumatin are the only two approved as nutritive sweeteners because they provide 4 cal per gram [chemically speaking, both are proteins]. However, being super sweet, they're used in such small amounts that make them effectively non-nutritive. Aspartame is 100 to 400 times sweeter than sugar, and thaumatin is 2000 to 5000. Stevia, monk fruit, sucralose, saccharin, acesulfame K, and neotame are non-nutritive sweeteners (0 cal/gram).

As I write this, stevia (leaf extract) carries the medal of the most popular high-intensity sweetener, with almost 200 products sold in stores. You can see the complete list here. They contain a variety of stevia leaf extracts such as reb A, reb D, reb M, or stevioside.

Are sweeteners safe?

By law, the FDA–approved sweeteners must be safe for consumption. You can read how the FDA assesses their safety HERE.

Even though aspartame is one of the most studied food additives in the human food supply, it's the most controversial sweetener. It's approved in more than 90 countries. Americans have been sweetening with it for almost 50 years.

The latest controversy happened in July 2023, when the World Health Organization (WHO) released a risk assessment of aspartame and cancer, saying aspartame is a "possible carcinogen," meaning aspartame is a Group 2B carcinogen, and there's “limited evidence” for cancer in humans, specifically liver cancer.

However, the FDA's position is not in line with the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of WHO] according to their statement below:

"The FDA disagrees with IARC’s conclusion that the studies support classifying aspartame as a possible carcinogen to humans. FDA scientists reviewed the scientific information included in IARC’s review in 2021 when it was first made available and identified significant shortcomings in the studies on which IARC relied."

The FDA emphasizes that the WHO did not raise safety concerns for aspartame under the current levels of use and did not change the prior Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of aspartame of 40 mg/kg of body. WHO affirmed that an intake within this range is safe.

An ADI is the amount of a substance considered safe to consume EACH DAY over the course of A PERSON'S LIFETIME. To understand what this limit means for aspartame, a 150-pound (68 kg) person would need to consume a total of 75 packets per day of Equal, EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THEIR LIFE.

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