For dairy processors looking to reformulate with reduced or no sugar in their products, the challenge to achieve the right texture and mouthfeel begin as RSSL’s innovation manager of the product & ingredient innovation department Sarah Marshall explains.
The pressure is increasing on all sections of the food industry to reduce sugars in foods. Historical concerns about the impact of sugars on tooth decay have been superseded by the argument that ‘too much sugar’ in the diet is leading to obesity, accompanied by a growing incidence of type II diabetes.
However, within this debate, there is often confusion over the use of the term ‘sugar’, so it is worth reiterating that from a legal/labelling perspective, ‘sugar’ refers specifically to sucrose, whereas ‘sugars’ includes all of the mono- and disaccharides used in foods. Sucrose is itself a disaccharide of glucose and fructose.
As most food technologists will be aware, the role of sugars is more than simple sweetening. If sweetness were the only characteristic that sugars imparted on foods it would be relatively easy to replace them with non-nutritive sweeteners.
However, sugars also provide bulk, texture and mouthfeel. In addition, they reduce the available water, meaning that they help preserve products from microbial spoilage. Then there are the contributions that sugars make to colour and flavour.
In beverages, the contributions made by sugars to bulk and texture are less significant, but in dairy products, such as ice-creams, desserts and yogurts, their role is more apparent, and any attempt at replacing sugars must deal with the textural issues as much as the sweetness/flavour issues.
There are now a number of high potency sweeteners, some of which are naturally derived, available to food technologists, but there is no option that is guaranteed to be successful in every case. With the vast variety of different products and formulations being manufactured, bespoke solutions, are typically necessary and so finding the right option to replace sugars will always involve an element of trial and error.
That said, there is a wealth of understanding of the performance of established high potency sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame-K and sucralose, both singly and in combination, which mean the experienced formulator is able to narrow down suitable options for specific sweetening applications.
The performance of naturally derived intense sweeteners in products is less well characterised. Steviol glycosides, including stevioside and rebaudioside A (reb A) extracted from the leaves of the Stevia plant, often jointly referred to as Stevia, have slowly been gaining some traction in European and US markets, since approval in recent years. There are now examples of chocolate, milk drinks, yogurts and other non-dairy products that contain Stevia as their main sweetener.
Other intensely sweet materials such as Lo Han Guo, Brazzein and Monatin do exist naturally, but, as yet, reb A is the only material to have received approval both in the EU and the US. It has a reasonable taste profile, with less bitterness and liquorice flavours than some of the other natural options.
In all cases, it is often preferable to blend sweeteners in order to mimic the sweetness profile of sucrose, in terms of onset, duration, aftertaste and stability.
There are a number of different materials including fibres, proteins, resistant starches and polyols that can be used to replace the bulk/textural properties of sugars. Polyols are the most similar to sugars, being derived from them typically by hydrogenation, and benefit from being slightly sweet, providing humectancy similar to sugars with a lower caloric value than sugars. Polyols are typically more expensive to use than sugar and as with intense sweeteners their use is subject to local legislation. Another issue to be aware of with the use of polyols is that their caloric values are calculated differently in different countries. This clearly has implications for labelling and potentially, for market acceptance.
Ultimately, sugars have many properties other than sweetness, therefore the best solutions for sugar replacement will require a blend of different ingredients to compensate for the absence of sugars. This is likely to mean a combination of high potency sweeteners and bulk sugar replacers, tailored to fit the application.
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024