The Future Of Sweeteners

Sweetener, as the name suggests, is a substance that adds sweetness to food, and is also the most used food additive in food all over the country. Sweetener is an important product in the food, medicine, condiment and other industries. All over the world, the application of sweeteners in various food additives has been very extensive, especially non-calorie, non-nutritive high-intensity sweeteners or functional high-intensity sweeteners, which are the most researched areas by scientists from all over the world. Functional high-intensity sweeteners have high safety, low dosage, high sweetness, and the cost of use is generally much lower than that of sucrose.

Nutritious sweetener refers to a sweetener whose calorific value is more than 2% of the caloric value of sucrose when the sweetness is the same as that of sucrose. Non-nutritive sweeteners are defined as less than 2% of the caloric value of sucrose.

Natural non-nutritive sweeteners are increasingly valued and are the development trend of sweeteners. WHO pointed out that the number of diabetic patients has reached more than 50 million, and more than a quarter of Americans require low-calorie foods. Among the sucrose substitutes, aspartame is mainly used in the United States, accounting for more than 90%, Japan is mainly steviol glycosides, and Europeans are more interested in AK sugar (acesulfame potassium). All three non-nutritive sweeteners are available in China.

From the perspective of market demand and research on sweeteners, the development trend of sweeteners mainly has two aspects:

High-intensity sweeteners have the advantages of high sweetness, low calorie, not easy to cause dental caries, and high safety, and most of these sweeteners are non-sugar substances, which are not controlled by insulin during metabolism and will not cause obesity. and increased blood pressure, suitable for diabetics, obese patients as a sweet substitute.

Functional sweeteners (mainly oligosaccharides at this stage) not only have the characteristics of low calorie, high stability, safety and non-toxicity, but also have the unique function of promoting the reproduction of probiotics and inhibiting the growth of harmful bacteria. The physiological functions of functional oligosaccharides mainly include the following aspects:

1. It is not easy to be absorbed by the human body, and the calories provided are very low or not at all, which can be eaten by diabetics, obese patients and hyperglycemic patients.

2. Activates bifidobacteria in the intestinal tract and promotes their growth. Functional oligosaccharides are the proliferation factors of beneficial bacteria in the gut, and the most obvious object of proliferation is bifidobacteria. Human experiments have shown that certain functional oligosaccharides, such as isomalt oligosaccharides, are utilized by bifidobacteria and some lactic acid bacteria in the large intestine after being ingested into the human body, while harmful intestinal perfringens such as perfringens and clostridium are putrefied. Bacteria cannot use it, because bifidobacteria have receptors for oligosaccharides on the cell surface, and many oligosaccharides are effective bifidogenic factors.

3. It will not cause dental caries and is conducive to maintaining oral hygiene.

4. It has some physiological functions of dietary fiber, such as lowering serum cholesterol and preventing colon cancer.