Love them or hate them zero calorie sweeteners are found in many products in the supermarket. Some people avoid them diligently, others embrace them as a way to lower calories or reduce the amount of sugar they eat.
It is a personal decision to use or not use low calorie sweeteners, and that is totally fine. Scientific facts, however, do not warrant exclusion from the food supply.
Let’s take a quick look at the no calorie sweetener on the market.
Saccharin, (brand names Sweet’N Low, Sweet Twin) is the oldest in use, first discovered in 1878 and still the third most popular sweetener used in the US. It is 300 times sweeter than sugar. At one point it was considered a cancer-causing agent but after extensive review it was delisted as a carcinogen in 2000. The biggest drawback is that saccharin has a metallic aftertaste.
Aspartame (brand names NutraSweet, Equal) was discovered in 1965 and is composed of two amino acids (protein fragments) – aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Aspartic acid can be made in your body and phenylalanine is an essential amino acid that the body cannot make but you get from foods like meat, poultry, tofu, fish, beans and many other foods you eat all the time. Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar. It was believed to be linked to behavior issues, nervous system disorders like Parkinson’s, and cancer but all these associations have been disproven.
Sucralose (brand name Splenda) was discovered in 1976 and approved by the FDA as a general-purpose sweetener in 1999. It is 600 times sweeter than sugar and heat stable, making it a valuable sugar substitute in baking. Sucralose passes through the digestive tract unchanged, meaning it is never absorbed into the body, and it is eliminated in stools.
Stevia (brand name Truvia) is made from the leaves of the stevia plant and can be up to 350 times sweeter than sugar. The FDA gave stevia GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status in 2018. It is not digested by the body and excreted in urine. Some dislike the taste of stevia finding it bitter or menthol-like.
Monk fruit also known as lo han guo is a small round fruit grown in Southeast Asia. Buddhist monks grew the fruit centuries ago in Southern China. Monk fruit is 100 to 250 times sweeter than sugar and has been considered GRAS by the FDA since 2010.
