Stevia is a sweet sugar substitute that is about 50 to 300 times sweeter than sugar. It is extracted from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana, a plant native to areas of Paraguay and Brazil in the southern Amazon rainforest. The active compounds in stevia are steviol glycosides. Stevia is heat-stable, pH-stable, and not fermentable. Humans cannot metabolize the glycosides in stevia, and therefore it has zero calories. Its taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, and at high concentrations some of its extracts may have an aftertaste described as licorice-like or bitter. Stevia is used in sugar- and calorie-reduced food and beverage products as an alternative for variants with sugar.
Sucralose is an artificial sweetener and sugar substitute. As the majority of ingested sucralose is not metabolized by the body, it adds minimal calories. 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 and C6 positions of the fructose portion and the C4 position of the glucose portion—to give a 1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxyfructose–4-chloro-4-deoxygalactose disaccharide. Sucralose is about 600 times sweeter than sucrose, three times as sweet as both aspartame and acesulfame potassium, and twice as sweet as sodium saccharin.
Splenda is a global brand of sugar substitutes and reduced-calorie food products. While the company is known for its original formulation containing sucralose, it also manufactures items using natural sweeteners such as stevia, monk fruit and allulose. It is owned by the American company Heartland Food Products Group. The high-intensity sweetener ingredient sucralose used in Splenda Original is manufactured by the British company Tate & Lyle.
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.
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.
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 and/or caloric intake.
Sweet'n Low is a brand of artificial sweetener now made primarily from granulated saccharin. When introduced in 1958 in the United States, Sweet'n Low was cyclamate-based, but it was replaced by a saccharin-based formulation in 1969. It is also a brand name applied to a family of sweetener and sweetened products, some containing sweeteners other than saccharin or cyclamate. There have been over 500 billion Sweet'N Low packets produced.
Crystal Light is an American brand of powdered and artificially sweetened beverage mixes produced by Kraft Heinz. It was introduced in 1982 to a test market and released to the public in April 1984. General Foods, a now defunct company, were the original sellers of the product, but now it is sold by Kraft Foods. It is available in a wide variety of flavors, such as lemonade, sweet tea, and fruit punch.
Benjamin Eisenstadt was the designer of the modern sugar packet and developer of Sweet'N Low. He was the founder of the Cumberland Packing Corporation and a notable philanthropist.
Agave syrup, also known as maguey syrup or agave nectar, is a sweetener commercially produced from several species of agave, including Agave tequilana and Agave salmiana. Blue-agave syrup contains 56% fructose as a sugar providing sweetening properties.
Merisant is an American manufacturer of zero/low-calorie sugar substitutes. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of MacAndrews & Forbes and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Merisant markets brands in over 90 countries including Equal and Canderel, as well as natural sweeteners PureVia and Whole Earth featuring stevia and monkfruit extract. In 2021, Merisant was ranked 12th on the Top 50 Global Sweetener Companies list by FoodTalks.
Truvia is a brand of stevia-based sugar substitute developed jointly by The Coca-Cola Company and Cargill. It is distributed and marketed by Cargill as a tabletop sweetener as well as a food ingredient. Truvia is made of stevia leaf extract, erythritol, and natural flavors. Because it comes from the stevia plant, Cargill classifies Truvia as a natural sweetener in addition to being a non-nutritive sweetener, although Cargill has settled lawsuits alleging deceptive marketing of Truvia as "natural". Since its launch in 2008, Truvia natural sweetener has become the second best-selling sugar substitute in units in the U.S. behind Splenda, surpassing Equal and Sweet'n Low. Truvia competes with Stevia In The Raw, the #2 brand of stevia, owned by Cumberland Packaging who also makes Sweet 'n Low.
A sugar packet is a delivery method for one serving of sugar or other sweetener. Sugar packets are commonly supplied in restaurants, coffeehouses, and tea houses, where they are preferred to sugar bowls or sugar dispensers for reasons of neatness, sanitation, spill control, and to some extent portion control.
PureVia is a stevia-based low calorie sugar substitute developed jointly by PepsiCo and Whole Earth Sweetener Company which is a wholly owned subsidiary of artificial sweetener manufacturing company Merisant.
Sprite is a clear, lemon-lime flavored soft drink created by the Coca-Cola Company. Sprite comes in multiple flavors, including cranberry, cherry, grape, orange, tropical, ginger, and vanilla. Ice, peach, Berryclear remix, and newer versions of the drinks are artificially sweetened. Sprite was created to compete primarily against 7-Up.
Zevia is a Los Angeles based company that produces soft drinks, organic tea, energy drinks, and mixers sweetened with stevia. All Zevia products are zero-calorie, sugar-free, gluten free, vegan, certified kosher, and certified by The Non-GMO Project. In June 2021, Zevia filed to go public with an IPO.
Pepsi Next is a discontinued cola-flavored carbonated soft drink produced by PepsiCo. It was a variant of the Pepsi cola range.
Coca-Cola Life was a reduced-calorie version of Coca-Cola introduced in 2013, using a combination of stevia and sugar as sweeteners. It was first released in Argentina and Chile after five years of research together in these countries. The formulation varied by market location, and in some areas the original formulation had been phased out in favor of a zero-calorie version sweetened with stevia only. The drink was discontinued in 2020 as part of the Coca-Cola Company discontinuing underperforming brands.
Halo Top Creamery is an ice cream company and brand sold in the United States, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Austria, United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The brand is marketed as a lower-calorie alternative, partially substituting sugar with stevia, a plant-based sweetener, and erythritol, a sugar alcohol.
