The skinny on most sweeteners

Looking for ways to trim calories? You’re not alone, particularly at this time of year.

One way is by cutting out sweets, or at least by switching from table sugar (sucrose) to alternative sweeteners.

We know artificial sweeteners are good in iced tea and soda, but what about in cooking? Do they stay sweet, or does the flavor disintegrate like last month’s holiday cookies? Because I’m a food scientist, I thought I should experiment.

First, a sweet primer: The most common household sweetener is table sugar (sucrose), a natural sugar. There are many alternative nutritive sweeteners, including honey (which contains more than 40 percent fructose), corn syrup (glucose), maple syrup, rice malt syrup, molasses, turbinado sugar, Sucanat and Rapadura, to name a few. Many of these are sucrose along with minerals from molasses, and all have calories, cause tooth decay and elevate blood glucose levels.

There also are many nonnutritive sweeteners, including sugar alcohols (polyols) such as xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, maltitol, lactitol, isomalt and hydrogenated starch. These are found primarily in commercially made candies, chewing gum, jams, jellies and frozen desserts.

There also are naturally occurring supersweeteners, including stevia, thaumatin and glycyrrhizin, all of which have a licorice or bitter aftertaste. These contain few or no calories, and none causes tooth decay or elevates blood glucose.

To make things easier, I have limited this article to nonnutritive, artificial (man-made) sweeteners. Some are the sweeteners most popular in the United States, including:

• Saccharin (Sweet’N Low).

• Cyclamate.

• Acesulfame-K (Sunett).

• Aspartame (Equal).

• Alitame.

• Sucralose (Splenda).

Saccharin is 300 to 600 times sweeter than sucrose and has a slightly bitter, metallic aftertaste. It has been in use since 1900. Saccharin can tolerate elevated baking temperatures and still stay sweet. (Some other artificial sweeteners can’t, which is one of the reasons they are not appropriate for baking.)

Saccharin has been approved for use in more than 90 countries, and epidemiological studies have failed to link saccharin consumption with cancer in humans.

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