Firstly, erythritol has low energy: only 0.21 kcal/g (5% of sucrose calorie), significantly lower than other sugar alcohol sweeteners. According to the national food safety standard GB 28050-2011 Q&A, the energy coefficient of erythritol is 0kJ/g, which can almost ignore the amount of calories. This has also become a major reason why many consumers who want to lose weight and control their calorie intake choose erythritol.
Secondly, erythritol has a high sweetness: in nutritional sweeteners, it has a higher sweetness, second only to xylitol and maltitol. The sweetness of erythritol is equivalent to 60% -80% of the sweetness of an equal amount of sucrose. It can create a mild cooling effect in the mouth and does not have the metallic "aftertaste" that some synthetic sweeteners have.
Even, erythritol is beneficial for oral health, as it cannot be utilized and transformed by bacteria in the mouth and does not cause dental caries. It is beneficial for both children and adults' oral health. Many children's lollipops and candies use erythritol as a source of sweetness.
The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), National Health Commission (NHC), and China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have conducted a comprehensive evaluation and confirmed the safety of erythritol. Internationally, the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) have all confirmed its safety, and the Society for Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) has included erythritol as part of a healthy diet.
The competition and chatter between different sweeteners began in the 19th century. From academia, research, and capital, stakeholders have invested heavily. These investments are not only used for research and development, but also to compete for the market for their own products, making the information that ordinary consumers come into contact with complex and even difficult to distinguish between true and false.
Indeed, some artificial sweeteners have been shown to have potential health effects, such as saccharin, aspartame, etc. Saccharin, as the first generation sweetener, was once popular, with a sweetness 500 times that of sugar. It entered the stage of industrial production at the end of the 19th century and quickly entered millions of households. However, in 1997, saccharin was once banned in Canada because it was found to cause bladder cancer in rats. Nowadays, saccharin is strictly limited in 14 types of food in China and cannot be added to baby food.
In natural sugar substitutes, there are actually "high and low" differences. For example, xylitol is a natural sweetener extracted from birch, oak, corncob, bagasse and other plant materials, which is widely used in food for people with diabetes and is widely recognized as a natural sugar substitute.
However, there are still some shortcomings in the "production process" of xylitol: most of it still uses industrial acid hydrolysis, which cannot be fully "natural". In addition, although the calorie and glycemic index of xylitol are low, they are not "zero", and excessive consumption is more likely to cause adverse reactions such as bloating and diarrhea, with lower tolerance.
Compared to other sugar alcohols, erythritol is also "naturally healthy" from a technological perspective, and is one of the few products produced by microbial fermentation among all sugar alcohols. From this perspective, erythritol, which is more natural in both composition and production, not only provides consumers with