News from CRIS: Trending - Sweeteners

December 13, 2021

What are sweeteners? 

Any ingredient that adds a familiar sweet taste to our foods is a sweetener. We can find sweeteners in nature (e.g., honey, maple syrup), humans can make them from synthetic ingredients, or we can derive them from natural ingredients. 

What types of sweeteners are there?

There are four main types of sweeteners:

  • Sugars
  • Sugar Alcohols
  • Artificial Sweeteners
  • Naturally-derived low-calorie sweeteners, like Stevia & Monk Fruit

What are sugars?

Sugar is a type of carbohydrate found in many foods. Sugar can be the naturally occurring carbohydrates found in fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy products. 

Sugar can also refer to the many types of sweeteners we add to food products such as honey, maple syrup, table sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and more. 

...

To continue reading the entire blog post, visit: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/trending-sweeteners.