Aspartame is an artificial non-saccharide sweetener 200 times sweeter than sucrose and is commonly used as a sugar substitute in foods and beverages. It is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide with the trade names NutraSweet, Equal, and Canderel. First submitted for approval as a food ingredient in 1974, aspartame was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981.
A flavoring, also known as flavor or flavorant, is a food additive used to improve the taste or smell of food. It changes the perceptual impression of food as determined primarily by the chemoreceptors of the gustatory and olfactory systems. Along with additives, other components like sugars determine the taste of food.
Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance taste, appearance, or other sensory qualities. Some additives have been used for centuries as part of an effort to preserve food, for example vinegar (pickling), salt (salting), smoke (smoking), sugar (crystallization), etc. This allows for longer-lasting foods such as bacon, sweets or wines. With the advent of processed foods in the second half of the twentieth century, many additives have been introduced, of both natural and artificial origin. Food additives also include substances that may be introduced to food indirectly in the manufacturing process, through packaging, or during storage or transport.
Stevia is a natural sweetener and sugar substitute derived from the leaves of the plant species Stevia rebaudiana, native to Paraguay and Brazil.
Sucralose is an artificial sweetener and sugar substitute. The majority of ingested sucralose is not broken down by the body, so it is noncaloric. In the European Union, it is also known under the E number E955. It is produced by chlorination of sucrose, selectively replacing three of the hydroxy groups in the C1, C4, and C6 positions to give a 1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxyfructose–4-chloro-4-deoxygalactose disaccharide. Sucralose is about 320 to 1,000 times sweeter than sucrose, three times as sweet as both aspartame and acesulfame potassium, and twice as sweet as sodium saccharin.
A sugar substitute is a food additive that provides a sweetness like that of sugar while containing significantly less food energy than sugar-based sweeteners, making it a zero-calorie or low-calorie sweetener. Artificial sweeteners may be derived through manufacturing of plant extracts or processed by chemical synthesis. Sugar substitute products are commercially available in various forms, such as small pills, powders, and packets. Natural sweeteners include stevia, maple syrup, and agave nectar.
Cyclamate is an artificial sweetener. It is 30–50 times sweeter than sucrose, making it the least potent of the commercially used artificial sweeteners. It is often used with other artificial sweeteners, especially saccharin; the mixture of 10 parts cyclamate to 1 part saccharin is common and masks the off-tastes of both sweeteners. It is less expensive than most sweeteners, including sucralose, and is stable under heating. Safety concerns led to it being banned in a few countries, though the European Union considers it safe.
Saccharin, often used in the form of sodium saccharin, is an artificial sweetener with effectively no nutritional value. It is about 550 times as sweet as sucrose but has a bitter or metallic aftertaste, especially at high concentrations. Saccharin is used to sweeten products such as drinks, candies, cookies, and especially for masking the bitter taste of some medicines.
Acesulfame potassium, also known as acesulfame K or Ace K, is a synthetic calorie-free sugar substitute often marketed under the trade names Sunett and Sweet One. In the European Union, it is known under the E number E950. It was discovered accidentally in 1967 by German chemist Karl Clauss at Hoechst AG. In chemical structure, acesulfame potassium is the potassium salt of 6-methyl-1,2,3-oxathiazine-4(3H)-one 2,2-dioxide. It is a white crystalline powder with molecular formula C
4H
4KNO
4S and a molecular weight of 201.24 g/mol.
Diet or light beverages are generally sugar-free, artificially sweetened beverages with few or no calories. They are marketed for diabetics and other people who want to reduce their sugar intake.
Neotame, also known by the trade name Newtame, is a non-caloric artificial sweetener and aspartame analog by NutraSweet. By mass, it is 8000 times sweeter than sucrose. It has no notable off-flavors when compared to sucrose. It enhances original food flavors. It can be used alone, but is often mixed with other sweeteners to increase their individual sweetness and decrease their off-flavors. It is chemically somewhat more stable than aspartame. Its use can be cost effective in comparison to other sweeteners as smaller amounts of neotame are needed.
Diet Pepsi is a diet carbonated cola soft drink produced by PepsiCo, introduced in 1964 as a variant of Pepsi with no sugar. First test marketed in 1963 under the name Patio Diet Cola, it was re-branded as Diet Pepsi the following year, becoming the first diet cola to be distributed on a national scale in the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s its competition consisted of Tab, produced by the Coca-Cola Company. The United States represents the largest single market for Diet Pepsi.
Lactisole is the sodium salt and commonly supplied form of 2-(4-methoxyphenoxy)propionic acid, a natural carboxylic acid found in roasted coffee beans. Like gymnemic acid, it has the property of masking sweet flavors and is used for this purpose in the food industry.
Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones, and sugar alcohols. Some are sweet at very low concentrations, allowing their use as non-caloric sugar substitutes. Such non-sugar sweeteners include saccharin and aspartame. Other compounds, such as miraculin, may alter perception of sweetness itself.
Equal is an American brand of artificial sweetener containing aspartame, acesulfame potassium, dextrose and maltodextrin. It is marketed as a tabletop sweetener by Merisant, a global corporation which also used to own the well-known NutraSweet brand when it was a subsidiary of Monsanto and which has headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, Switzerland, Mexico, and Singapore. In French Canada, Equal is known as "Égal".
D-Psicose (C6H12O6), also known as D-allulose, or simply allulose, is a low-calorie epimer of the monosaccharide sugar fructose, used by some major commercial food and beverage manufacturers as a low-calorie sweetener. First identified in wheat in the 1940s, allulose is naturally present in small quantities in certain foods.
The artificial sweetener aspartame has been the subject of several controversies since its initial approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1974. The FDA approval of aspartame was highly contested, beginning with suspicions of its involvement in brain cancer, alleging that the quality of the initial research supporting its safety was inadequate and flawed, and that conflicts of interest marred the 1981 approval of aspartame, previously evaluated by two FDA panels that concluded to keep the approval on hold before further investigation. In 1987, the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that the food additive approval process had been followed properly for aspartame. The irregularities fueled a conspiracy theory, which the "Nancy Markle" email hoax circulated, along with claims—counter to the weight of medical evidence—that numerous health conditions are caused by the consumption of aspartame in normal doses.
Naringin dihydrochalcone, sometimes abbreviated to naringin DC, is an artificial sweetener derived from naringin, a bitter compound found in citrus.
Neohesperidin is a flavanone glycoside found in citrus fruits. It is the 7-O-neohesperidose derivative of hesperetin, which in turn is the 4'-methoxy derivative of eriodictyol. Neohesperidin dihydrochalcone has an intense sweet taste, and is listed as a Generally Recognized as Safe flavour enhancer by the Flavour and Extract Manufacturers' Association.
Advantame is a non-caloric artificial sweetener and aspartame analog by Ajinomoto. By mass, it is about 20 000 times sweeter than sucrose and about 110 times sweeter than aspartame. It has no notable off-flavors when compared to sucrose and tastes sweet a bit longer than aspartame and is chemically more stable. It can be blended with many other natural and artificial sweeteners.
