Inulin – 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 foods. How can the ingre­di­ents be used and what should be con­sid­ered? These are the ques­tions we will answer! In this arti­cle, we take a clos­er look at inulin.

What is inulin?

Inulin is a fiber that is com­mon in the plant king­dom. It is found in many fruits and veg­eta­bles. For exam­ple, inulin makes up 0.3 to 0.7 per­cent of the banana you eat for snacks. And the onion in the food you have for lunch con­tains between 1 and 20 per­cent inulin.

But for sug­ar reduc­tion, you have to use inulin which is extract­ed from the root of a com­mon plant along our roads: The Chicory plant. Chicory roots con­sist of 15 to 20 per­cent inulin.

You can read more about the extrac­tion of inulin in the arti­cle Inulin – from seed to Eureba.

Replacing sugar with fiber

Inulin has some sweet­ness. But not enough to replace the sweet­ness from sug­ar. So why should you use it for sug­ar reduction?

Well, inulin has a pos­i­tive effect on the taste of ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides which is a high-inten­si­ty sweet sub­stance extract­ed from the plant ste­via. Steviol gly­co­sides have a slight­ly bit­ter taste and slight­ly licorice-like after­taste. But with inulin, the flavour spec­trum is moved away from the less desir­able flavours. Instead, the taste is per­ceived as sweet­er and more pleasant.

Reduces calories

In addi­tion to its flavour-enhanc­ing prop­er­ties, inulin acts as a calo­rie reduc­ing ingre­di­ent. The calo­rie-reduc­ing effect is relat­ed to the fact that inulin is a dietary fiber.

The fact that inulin is a fiber means that it pass­es through the diges­tive sys­tem with­out being bro­ken down. But the bac­te­ria in the colon can feast on inulin. In this fer­men­ta­tion process, short-chain fat­ty acids are formed that the body can absorb. In this way, the body is fed about 2 kcal per 1 gram of inulin. That’s half the amount com­pared to sugar.

Another dif­fer­ence com­pared to sug­ar lies in the decom­po­si­tion time. While sug­ar is rapid­ly bro­ken down and absorbed by the body, inulin takes its time. It gives a longer feel­ing of saturation.

Triggers the stomach

A low­er amount of calo­ries and longer sati­ety are two ben­e­fits of inulin com­pared to sugar.

But watch out! You don’t want to over­con­sume inulin. Anyone who eats more than 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day may get stom­ach prob­lems. Too much fiber gen­er­ates gas­es which, in turn, cause flat­u­lence and dis­com­fort. This could even­tu­al­ly lead to diarrhea.

Water-soluble

Inulin is water-sol­u­ble. This makes the ingre­di­ent easy to work with. But it also has oth­er pos­i­tive effects.

With a lit­tle acid and heat, inulin dis­solved in water can be both more or less vis­cous. And with more than 15 per­cent inulin, it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate both cream and jelly.

Inulin also binds mois­ture, which can be used, for exam­ple, to give pas­tries a juicy, soft, and fresh feel.

High compatibility

With its ver­sa­til­i­ty, inulin fits into many dif­fer­ent types of foods. It works well in dairy prod­ucts, sweets and in breads and pas­tries. But it also fits in cere­als and healthy gra­nola, in mues­li bars, and in drinks. Inulin has a jel­ly effect that can be used in creams and jams.

Inulin blends well with high-inten­si­ty sweet­en­ers, and can also be com­bined with sug­ar alco­hols, poly­dex­trose and oth­er fibers.

Now it sounds like inulin is the per­fect date, every­one seems to like hang­ing out with inulin! However, that’s not real­ly the case.

Not always a match

Infitullin should not be used in foods with a pH-val­ue too low. If so, inulin is bro­ken down into fruc­tose, which the liv­er con­verts into fat. As a result, both the reduced calo­ries and the feel­ing of sati­ety are lost.

Inulin can, how­ev­er, be used in foods with some acid, such as yoghurt, milk and beer, as long as the pH val­ue is over 3.5.

Replacing sugar with inulin

Can you direct­ly replace sug­ar with inulin in a recipe for, let’s say, bread?

Well … if you do, you will at best get a pale bread that tastes less sweet than the orig­i­nal and caus­es stom­ach prob­lems. So let’s take a step back and think about what can be done.

Inulin is chains of linked fruc­tose moi­eties that ter­mi­nate with a sin­gle glu­cose moi­ety. The chains can vary in length from 2 to 60 parts of fruc­tose. Chains of dif­fer­ent lengths have dif­fer­ent prop­er­ties. For exam­ple, a dough gets more sweet­ness of short­er chains, but increased elas­tic­i­ty of longer chains. The first thing you need to do to suc­ceed with your bak­ing is to find out the cor­rect com­po­si­tion of inulin of dif­fer­ent lengths.

The next step will be to com­pen­sate for the reduced sweet­ness. If you do not want to add more calo­ries and want to avoid syn­thet­ic sweet­en­ers, ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides is a good option in tech­ni­cal terms. But cur­rent EU-reg­u­la­tions does not approve of ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides in bak­ery, with a few excep­tions (read more in this arti­cle). Therefore, you must con­sid­er oth­er solu­tions to com­pen­sate for the sweetness.

Then you have to think about how to give the bread the right colour. It may get some colour from inulin. Of course, inulin is ther­mal­ly sta­ble in itself, but water, acid and the right tem­per­a­ture can cause inulin to give off fruc­tose, which under­goes Maillard reac­tion and is caramelized upon heat­ing. But it is not enough to give the right colour. You need to add some­thing else. The ques­tion is what?

Finally, we must take into account the stom­achs of our con­sumers. If as much inulin is used as sug­ar, there is a high risk that con­sumers will get too much fiber in one day. The result is, at best, gas­es and flat­u­lence. At worst, diar­rhea. Thus, inulin alone can­not replace sugar.

We ask Srdjan

So how are you going to solve the mat­ter with inulin?

We ask Srdjan Solaja, food engi­neer, and expert in sug­ar reduction.

– There is no sim­ple answer. To achieve bet­ter results, you must test and exper­i­ment. You need to have in-depth knowl­edge of the var­i­ous ingre­di­ents that can be used for sug­ar reduc­tion. Only then can one know how they can be com­bined and used to lift each oth­er, with­out exceed­ing the rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly intake, says Srdjan Solaja.

What does he think it is like work­ing with inulin?

– Inulin is sim­pler than, for exam­ple, ste­vi­ol gly­co­sides, but it is still a com­plex task. Especially since we must con­stant­ly take into account the rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly intake and ensure that the con­sumer does not get too much. It is a quest to find the right com­bi­na­tion for the spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tion. Different foods need dif­fer­ent solu­tions, says Srdjan Solaja.

Srdjan’s three tips

1. It can replace added sug­ar 1:1 but don’t do that. Instead, replace 20-30% of the added sug­ar first, and see what happens.
2. Inulin is not as sweet as sug­ar. Therefore, you need to com­bine it with oth­er bulk sweet­en­ers or high-inten­si­ty sweeteners.
3. Take care of your stom­ach. Inulin can be lax­a­tive or cause bloat­ing and stom­ach upset if con­sumed in high con­cen­tra­tion. You want to avoid that effect.

A Helping Hand

Do you find sug­ar reduc­tion hard? Don’t wor­ry – please con­tact us. We offer ready-made solu­tions as well as tai­lor-made solu­tions.