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“Sucralose is a very popular sugar substitute that contains no calories.Ale Cyn
Q. Please tell me what sucralose is. I was going to make a recipe recently and it called for sucralose and sucralose-sugar blend. I’m not sure what it is.
A. Sucralose is a sugar substitute that is made from sugar, but it adds no calories to your total food intake because it isn’t digested.
After reviewing more than 110 animal and human studies, the Food and Drug Administration approved sucralose in 1998 for use in 15 food categories. In 1999 the FDA allowed sucralose as sweetener in all foods.
Sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, so only small amounts are needed to provide sweetness. For most people there is no bitter aftertaste. It is also heat-stable so it stays sweet even in cooking and baking.
Because such small amounts are needed to match the sweetness of sugar, sucralose can’t be substituted equally for sugar in recipes.
One manufacturer has solved this problem by combining sucralose and sugar; the resulting sweetener has half the calories and carbohydrate of sugar but works for baking. A sucralose/sugar blend works better for most baking than sugar substitutes alone.
For best results, especially when baking, use recipes developed for sucralose and sugar substitutes instead of trying to substitute them for sugar in your usual recipe.
Learn more about sucralose and sugar in the following articles:
- How Artificial Sweeteners Work: Sucralose
- Artificial Sweetener Basics
- Artificial Sweetener Controversy
- Diabetes and Sugar
