Introduction to food additive sweeteners and introduction to the main varieties

Sweeteners

Sweeteners are a class of additives that give food a sweet taste. It is a type of flavouring agent and can be divided into four categories according to its structure.

(1) Sugar white sugar, glucose, fructose, fructoglucose, etc.

(2) Sugar alcohols Xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, lactitol and (iso)maltitol.

(3) Synthetics Saccharin, sweetener, aspartic acid methyl phenylalaninate (apm), potassium acetyl sulfonate, etc. with low calorie and high sweetness.

(4) Natural substances Stevia, licorice stevia, rosmarinic acid, etc.. Low calorie.

Sweeteners can be divided into two categories according to their nutritional properties.

(1) Nutritive sweeteners Fructose syrup, xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, maltitol. Sweetening substances that participate in the body's metabolism and produce energy.

(2) Non-nutritive sweeteners are sweeteners that do not participate in the body's metabolism. (2) Non-nutritive sweeteners are sweeteners that do not participate in body metabolism and do not produce energy, such as saccharin, sweetener, APM, stevia, non-nutritive sweeteners and some nutritive sweeteners (e.g. sugar alcohols, xylose, etc.). The metabolism in the body is not related to insulin. They are therefore suitable for diabetic patients without increasing the quality of blood sugar.

The world production of sweeteners is more than 100 million t. The consumption level of each country is very different. The annual per capita consumption in the world is 21 22kg. 6070kg in developed countries; 1015kg in developing countries; and only 57kg in China.

The varieties of sweeteners consumed vary from country to country: the United States consumes mainly nutritive sweeteners such as glucose syrup and sorbitol, while non-nutritive sweeteners such as saccharin and APM are the main ones. In the United States, the main sweeteners consumed are saccharin and sorbitol.

The development trend of foreign sweeteners is mainly the production and use of low calorie, high sweetness synthetic or natural sweetener varieties, in which natural non-nutritive sweeteners are increasingly valued and developed, especially licorice and stevia. The use of natural non-nutritive sweeteners, especially liquorice and stevia, is widespread. Natural sweeteners such as nitrogen-based acids are representative of non-nutritive synthetic sweeteners. In addition, newly developed non-nutritive synthetic sweeteners include: sucrose chloride derivatives (400800 times sweeter than sucrose); potassium dioxazine (ACLK, 200 times sweeter than sucrose); and amino acid sweeteners (2000 times sweeter than sucrose). In addition, there is a widespread market in Europe for combination sweeteners, as they provide the best cost results.