Erythritol – sugar reduction in practice

Sugar reduc­tion is excit­ing but com­plex work. In an arti­cle series, we will look at some ingre­di­ents that can be used to reduce sug­ar in food. How can the ingre­di­ents be used and what should be con­sid­ered? These are ques­tions we will answer! In this arti­cle, we take a clos­er look at ery­thri­tol.

What is Erythritol?

Erythritol is a sug­ar alco­hol that is found in small amounts in some mush­rooms and algae, but also in fruits (for exam­ple water­mel­on and pears). You can find it in prod­ucts that have yeast, such as beer and cheese. Industrial-scale ery­thri­tol comes from glu­cose fermentation.

Find out more about the extrac­tion and much more in the arti­cle Erythritol – from seed to Eureba. Here we will take a clos­er look at how ery­thri­tol can be used (and should not be used) to replace sugar.

Replacing sugar with a sugar alcohol

Erythritol has about 60 to 70 per­cent of the sug­ar’s sweet­ness. It does­n’t sound exhil­a­rat­ing, but the fact is that ery­thri­tol is a very ver­sa­tile ingre­di­ent. This sug­ar alco­hol that can enhance and mask taste, it can retain mois­ture and act as bulk­ing ingre­di­ent and stabilizer.

In addi­tion, it has many oth­er benefits ...

Kind to the stomach

One advan­tage of ery­thri­tol, com­pared to oth­er sug­ar alco­hols, is its small mol­e­cules. This means that ery­thri­tol is main­ly absorbed in the small intes­tine and only a frac­tion reach­es the large intes­tine. This is good as it caus­es less prob­lems with gas­es and stom­ach issues.

Usually, the gut bac­te­ria loves sug­ar alco­hol, and grat­i­tude us with gas for­ma­tion. In addi­tion, sug­ar alco­hol binds water, which can lead to loose stomach.

Because so lit­tle of ery­thri­tol reach­es the large intes­tine, most peo­ple can eat it with­out much trou­ble. Nevertheless, prod­ucts con­tain­ing more than ten per­cent ery­thri­tol must be labelled with the indi­ca­tion that exces­sive con­sump­tion can have a lax­a­tive effect.

Leaves blood sugar in peace

Although the body absorbs ery­thri­tol in the small intes­tine, noth­ing hap­pens. It does not break down but is unchanged. Therefore, ery­thri­tol has no effect on blood sug­ar lev­els what­so­ev­er. It makes ery­thri­tol an excel­lent sweet­en­er for peo­ple with ele­vat­ed sug­ar lev­els, incip­i­ent insulin resis­tance and diabetes.

Low in calories

Another advan­tage of ery­thri­tol is that it is prac­ti­cal­ly calo­rie-free. Most things are tak­en up in the small intes­tine and are thrown out unchanged. Only the lit­tle ones that end up in the large intes­tine con­tribute calo­ries when the bac­te­ria con­vert it into fat­ty acids. It gives about 0.2 kcal per gram – which is negligible.

In the nutri­tion dec­la­ra­tion, ery­thri­tol con­tributes 0 kcal, unlike all oth­er sug­ar alco­hols that con­tribute 2.4 kcal per gram. Ordinary sug­ar has a full 4 kcal per gram.

So what can ery­thri­tol be used for?

Popular in beverages

Japan and the US were ear­ly on using ery­thri­tol in bev­er­ages of var­i­ous kinds. But it took until 2015 before the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) approved ery­thri­tol in bev­er­ages. Typical appli­ca­tions are soft drinks, smooth­ies, ice tea and milk drinks.

But why is ery­thri­tol so pop­u­lar in beverages?

In fact, it is not only to pro­vide sweet­ness (although you get it too) but to soft­en the side effects that come with many high-inten­si­ty sweet­en­ers (for exam­ple, aspar­tame, ace­sul­fame K and ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides). Even in cof­fee drinks and teas, ery­thri­tol can put the side fla­vors in place and at the same time offer some sweetness.

Erythritol can also help extend the shelf life. For exam­ple, aspar­tame los­es sweet­ness after a peri­od of time, which can cause unde­sir­able side effects. With ery­thri­tol, the lost sweet­ness is com­pen­sat­ed and the after­tastes are masked.

Simply put: Sugar-reduced drinks taste bet­ter with erythritol.

But ery­thri­tol is also a good fit for oth­er foods.

Many applications

We find ery­thri­tol in ice cream, cheese and sweets.

In milk prod­ucts such as ice cream and yoghurt, ery­thri­tol can be used to reduce sug­ar and thus the calo­ries and at the same time keep the mouth feel­ing intact. But also in new niche prod­ucts such as pro­tein pud­ding. We also find ery­thri­tol in jam, mar­malade and müs­li. And ery­thri­tol and sac­cha­rin have proven to work well togeth­er in, for exam­ple, chew­ing gum, marshmallows,

…… and toothpaste!

Prevents Caries

Like all sug­ar alco­hols, ery­thri­tol is harm­less to the teeth; it does not cause caries.

But not only that – ery­thri­tol even seems to pro­tect against caries. But unlike xyl­i­tol, which is anoth­er sug­ar alco­hol that pro­tects against caries, you cant use state­ments about caries and ery­thri­tol in marketing.

Not popular everywhere

With so many good prop­er­ties, ery­thri­tol should be a can­di­date in many oth­er con­texts. But so far, the break­through for this excit­ing sug­ar alco­hol is yet to come. For exam­ple, ery­thri­tol has not yet made a suc­cess among bak­eries, although it is sta­ble in heat up to 160 degrees Celsius.

One rea­son may be that ery­thri­tol lacks some oth­er prop­er­ties that sug­ar has. For exam­ple, ery­thri­tol has no Maillard reac­tion. So if ery­thri­tol replaces sug­ar then some­thing more is need­ed to give the brown shade and myr­i­ad of fla­vors and scents. For exam­ple, inulin or poly­dex­trose can be used.

Expensive

Erythritol is expen­sive. They cost 5 to 7 times more than reg­u­lar sug­ar. It may also be an expla­na­tion for why ery­thri­tol has not had its break­through yet.

Replacing sugar with erythritol

What if we replace sug­ar with ery­thri­tol straight off?

Erythritol is endother­mic. This means that heat is tak­en from the envi­ron­ment when ery­thri­tol dis­solves in liq­uid. The result is a cool­ing effect. When you eat ery­thri­tol it sim­ply gets cold in the mouth.

That is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a prob­lem. In bev­er­ages, ery­thri­tol is already dis­solved, and there­fore it has no cool­ing effect there. And in some appli­ca­tions, such as some can­dies, cough drops and chew­ing gum, the cool­ing effect has an intrin­sic value.

But in oth­er con­texts, it is a prob­lem. It can be par­tial­ly coun­ter­act­ed with exother­mic ingre­di­ents. Thus, an ingre­di­ent that gives off heat in con­tact with liq­uid. Inulin has that property.

Another prob­lem is that ery­thri­tol is not sweet enough to replace sug­ar alone.

Cold cakes

A research arti­cle in the Journal of Food Quality describes an exper­i­ment where cakes were baked with vary­ing amounts of sug­ar replaced with ery­thri­tol. It went well up to 50 per­cent, but above that, the sweet­ness became too small and the cool­ing effect too great.

The exper­i­ment illus­trates that it is rarely a good idea to replace sug­ar straight off with ery­thri­tol. Other ingre­di­ents are also need­ed and care­ful dos­ing is required to succeed.

We ask Srdjan

We let our expert and food engi­neer Srdjan Solaja give his view on ery­thri­tol and what you should think about.

Erythritol has many positive properties, but which are the negative ones?

– I would like to say that one can expect a dis­tinct cool­ing effect. Erythritol also tends to re-crystallize,says Srdjan Solaja.

What does that mean?

– This means that you can have an unde­sir­able visu­al effect in cer­tain foods (for exam­ple in fruit prepa­ra­tions, jams and drinks) if you add too much. The end prod­uct can also be less sweet as ery­thri­tol only has 60 to 70 per­cent of the sug­ar sweetness.

Srdjan con­tin­ues:

– Just like oth­er sug­ar alco­hols, ery­thri­tol requires knowl­edge in dos­ing and cur­rent reg­u­la­tions to avoid over­dos­ing. It is rec­om­mend­ed to com­bine it with oth­er sweet­en­ers to avoid poten­tial stom­ach prob­lems, accord­ing to Srdjan Solaja.

Srdjan’s three tips

1. Consider ery­thri­tol in prod­ucts for peo­ple with dia­betes; it does not raise blood sugar.
2. Be care­ful with the dosage; Erythritol has a notice­able cool­ing effect in the mouth, and too much can cause stom­ach problems.
3. Supplement with oth­er sweet­en­ers; ery­thri­tol is not sweet enough in itself.

A helping hand

If you want help reduc­ing sug­ar in your prod­uct, we can help you. Do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us.