Sweeteners in General - Sweeteners: Nutritional Aspects, Applications, and Production Technology - page 1

Chapter 1
Sweeteners in General
Theodoros Varzakas, Athanasios Labropoulos, and Stylianos Anestis
CONteNtS
1.1 Overview................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Sugars ....................................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Sweetener Categories................................................................................................................ 2
1.4 Added Sweeteners..................................................................................................................... 5
1.5 Sucrose and Fructose ................................................................................................................ 5
1.6 Fruit-Juice Concentrates: Just Empty Calories......................................................................... 5
1.7 Sugar Alcohols.......................................................................................................................... 6
1.8 Sweetened Beverages................................................................................................................ 6
1.9 Artiicial Sweeteners ................................................................................................................ 6
1.10 New Sweeteners Study Shows No Link with Cancer ............................................................... 6
1.11 Safety of Low-Calorie Sweeteners ........................................................................................... 7
References .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Internet Sources ................................................................................................................................. 9
1.1 OVerVIeW
Sweeteners are deined as food additives that are used or intended to be used either to impart a
sweet taste to food or as a tabletop sweetener. Tabletop sweeteners are products that consist of, or
include, any permitted sweeteners and are intended for sale to the ultimate consumer, normally for
use as an alternative to sugar. Foods with sweetening properties, such as sugar and honey, are not
additives and are excluded from the scope of oficial regulations. Sweeteners are classiied as either
high intensity or bulk. High-intensity sweeteners possess a sweet taste, but are noncaloric, provide
essentially no bulk to food, have greater sweetness than sugar, and are therefore used at very low
levels. On the other hand, bulk sweeteners are generally carbohydrates, providing energy (calories)
and bulk to food. These have similar sweetness to sugar and are used at comparable levels.
Sugar and other sweeteners are a major part of many diets. Sugars are carbohydrates. To clarify,
carbohydrates are molecules of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen produced by plants through photo-
synthesis. The term saccharide is a synonym for carbohydrate; a monosaccharide (mono = 1) is the
fundamental unit of carbohydrates. Disaccharides (di = 2) are molecules containing 2 monosaccha-
ride units. Disaccharides and monosaccharides are also known as sugars, simple sugars, or simple
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