Current application status and development prospects of sweeteners(1)

Sweeteners are food additives that give food a sweet taste, and can be divided into natural sweeteners and synthetic sweeteners according to their sources; nutritive sweeteners and non-nutritive sweeteners according to their nutritional value; sugar sweeteners and non-sugar sweeteners according to their chemical structure and properties. At present, there are about 20 kinds of sweeteners widely used in the world, and 15 kinds of sweeteners have been approved for use in China. 

According to statistics, sweeteners are the world's largest class of food additives in terms of production value, in the global total of 5 billion U.S. dollars in food additive sales, sweeteners account for more than 1 billion U.S. dollars. China's sweetener production has a history of several decades. In the past two decades, with the rapid development of China's food and beverage industry, the market demand has been expanding, and the annual production of sweeteners has increased at a rate of more than 10%. The negative impact of obesity, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, dental caries and other diseases caused by excessive intake of sugar substances has become an important issue in relation to people's quality of life and health. In today's highly developed social life and material civilization, the development of new functional sweeteners for health is receiving more and more attention from all over the world, and will certainly become the development direction of the world sweetener market.

Sweeteners commonly used at home and abroad

Sucrose (Cane suger)

Sucrose is a natural sweetener extracted from plants and is a non-reducing disaccharide, consisting of α-D-glucopyranose and β-D-fructose and connected by an intramolecular glycosidic bond, sucrose is safe, inexpensive, tasty and in line with people's traditional eating habits, and will remain one of the most important sweetener varieties. However, due to the constraints of arable land, it is unlikely that the production of sucrose will increase much. It should also be noted that cane sugar is a high-calorie sweetener and its excessive consumption can lead to obesity, dental caries and other diseases, so there should be a scientific approach to its consumption. It should be strictly limited, especially for special groups such as diabetic patients, according to medical advice.

Sodium soccharin

Saccharin has been used as a synthetic sweetener for over 90 years and is chemically known as O-salfobenzoic Acid Imi-de. Widely used is its sodium salt. The sweetness is 200-700 times that of sucrose. 20,000t of saccharin was produced in China in 2000, accounting for more than half of the world's production. Its advantages are low price, stable performance, wide range of uses, and not easy to be absorbed by the human body, belongs to the low-calorie sweetener. The disadvantage is that the taste quality is poor, there is obvious after bitterness, and the safety has been controversial.

Sweeteners (Sodium cyclamate)

The chemical name of sweetener is sodium cyclamate, the sweetness is 30 to 80 times that of sucrose, the advantage is that its sweetness is relatively pure, can replace sucrose or mixed with sucrose, can highly maintain the original food flavour, and can extend the preservation time of food, but also is not easily absorbed by the human body low calorie sweetener. It was banned in the 1970s in countries such as the US and Japan due to suspected carcinogenicity, but is still allowed in over 50 countries. China started to apply sweetener in 1987. The prescribed sweetener ADI is 0.65 mg/kg, it is currently the most used sweetener in China's food industry, in 2000 China's sweetener production for 25,000t.