Sugars, Sugar Alcohols, & Artificial Sweeteners: What are the differences and how do each impact caloric content?

As a food manufacturer, you have several options for adding sweetness to your product, including sugars, sugar alcohols, and artificial sweeteners. But how do they compare, and how do they impact the caloric content of your final product?

Before diving into the details of sugars, sugar alcohols, and artificial sweeteners, we'll first define a few key terms:

• Nutritive: Adding or contributing caloric value
• Non-Nutritive: Very low in calories (<2% of calories in sugar) or containing no calories at all

Sugars

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) considers most sugars to be nutritive simple carbohydrates that are either naturally occurring or refined by processing. Examples of sugars are listed in the accompanying table below, along with their respective aliases. New in the market are several “rare” sugars. Many of these have not been formally recognized with an alternative caloric factor per the FDA. However, there is one exception – allulose, which the FDA permits a 0.4 kcal/g factor.¹

The FDA also requires that “Added Sugars” be declared underneath the “Total Sugars” in a Nutrition Facts Panel. There is no analytical analysis to distinguish added from innate, which stresses the importance of accurate record keeping and understanding the ingredients in your formula.

Sugar Alcohols

Most sugar alcohols (or polyols) are considered to be nutritive carbohydrates with a similar structure to sugar, though they are neither a sugar nor an alcohol. Sugar alcohols can be naturally occurring but are generally manufactured or processed. These carbohydrates are not completely metabolized by the body, as outlined by FDA-recognized scientific literature. Thus, sugar alcohols have reduced caloric factors, as outlined in the accompanying table.

Many manufacturers find the use of sugar alcohols appealing due to their lower caloric contribution, as well as their decreased impact on tooth decay. Some have even been shown not to impact blood sugar levels, which could be beneficial to consumers afflicted by diabetes.¹ If you utilize sugar alcohols in your product, you need to declare them in the Nutrition Facts Panel and/or ingredient statement, especially if you declare the reduced caloric contributions.

Artificial Sweeteners

The FDA considers most artificial sweeteners to be non-nutritive sugar substitutes. They are often referred to as “high-intensity sweeteners” and are chemically not a sugar. These ingredients can vary from 200-20,000% sweeter than table sugar, which allows manufacturers to use them in small concentrations without impact to caloric contribution. These ingredients must be listed within the ingredient statement rather than inside the Nutrition Facts Panel.

Many consumers view these substitutes as “calorie-free,” however, they are technically considered carbohydrates and would contribute to calories with the 4 kcal/g factor. When in high concentration, artificial sweeteners have the potential to inflate calories beyond consumer expectation as they are still considered carbohydrates with the standard caloric factor.

That being said, some sweeteners are nitrogen-containing species (aspartame and saccharin) where nitrogen is traditionally recognized as protein (converted to protein by applicable factor, generally 6.25). Thus, they may also reduce the carbohydrate value when used in excess, given that carbohydrates are calculated using protein, ash, moisture, and total fat. At the same time, the total calories may remain unchanged as the protein value should be inflated by the same degree.

As previously mentioned, artificial sweeteners are most often used sparingly in finished products and, consequently, usually are not cause for concern with regards to caloric contribution on a nutrition label. These ingredients must be listed within the ingredient statement rather than inside the Nutrition Facts Panel.

Analytical Considerations

You should make your testing lab aware of any sugar alcohols, rare sugars, or artificial sweeteners in your product prior to testing. For certain methods, some sugar alcohols are known to interfere with peaks in the chromatography during sugar analysis. They can falsely inflate the sugar content reported.

Known interferences are listed below:

• Maltitol (interferes with Maltose)
• Sorbitol (interferes with Glucose)
• Xylitol (interferes with Fructose)
• Mannitol (interferes with Glucose)
• Lactitol (interferes with Lactose)
• Allulose (very high concentrations interfere with Fructose)
• Salt (NaCl) (very high concentrations interfere with Glucose)

A different approach (such as choice of HPLC column or mobile phase) may be needed to combat sugar alcohol interferences during analysis. Each method has its own limitations and relevant interferences.

Table of Caloric Factors

Caloric factors represented in kcal/g.

¹https://www.fda.gov/media/123342/download

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