delicious UK – April 2018

THE SANE VIEW

ILLUSTRATIONS: ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES

94 deliciousmagazine.co.uk

sweeteners are calorie-free and often

found in food and drinks labelled ‘diet’,

‘calorie-free’ or ‘no sugar’. The most

common ones in the UK include

acesulfame K, aspartame, saccharin and

sucralose (see box, right). Nutritive

sweeteners contain energy in the form of

It’s the holy grail of the food industry: a low-calorie, safe alternative to sugar that tastes

just as good. With mounting concerns that sugar is fuelling the global obesity epidemic,

the range of alternative sweeteners is growing. But, asks Sue Quinn, are sugar

substitutes all sweetness and light – or do they come with a bitter aftertaste?

S

ugar substitutes have been around
for almost 140 years – saccharin
was first produced in 1879 and
used during World War II when the white
stuff was in short supply. These days, we
consume vast quantities of sweeteners.
According to market research analysts
Euromonitor, more than 2 million tonnes
of ‘high intensity sweeteners’, as they’re
sometimes known, were consumed in food
and drink products in the UK in 2016. The
European Food Information Council says
sales of low-calorie soft drinks have
increased 15-fold over the past 30 years
and have become best sellers.

WHAT ARE SWEETENERS?
Alternative sweeteners are low-calorie
or calorie-free sugar replacements used
to sweeten food and drink. They’re also
available as ‘table-top sweeteners’ to stir
into tea and coffee or sprinkle over cereal.
Sweeteners are anything from 200 to
650 times sweeter than sugar and contain
almost no calories (between 0-4kcal/g).
Because they’re intensely sweet, only tiny
amounts are needed, so they can satisfy a
sweet tooth without racking up the calories.
There are different kinds of sweetener:
artificial, ‘non-nutritive’ or intense

Do artificial

sweeteners cause

weight gain?

carbohydrates, so they’re low-calorie but

not calorie-free. Common forms include

fructose and others ending in ‘ol’ such as

sorbitol and xylitol. Natural sweeteners

include calorie-free stevia, extracted from

the Stevia rebaudiana plant, as well as

honey, agave, coconut sugar, molasses,

brown rice syrup and maple syrup.

ARE THEY SAFE?

Over the decades there have been many

safety scares about alternative sweeteners.

Some early animal studies, later disproved,

suggested links to cancer. More recent

independent animal studies have suggested

they might cause health issues, including

neurological and liver problems.

Detractors say some sweeteners haven’t

been studied adequately and that studies

declaring them safe weren’t impartial

because they were sponsored by the

companies that manufacture them.

However, all modern sweeteners have

to undergo rigorous safety checks and be

approved by the European Food Safety

Authority. And both Cancer Research

UK and the US National Cancer Institute

have said sweeteners don’t cause cancer.

“Large studies looking at people have now

provided strong evidence that artificial