Sorbitol – 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 ques­tions we should answer! In this arti­cle, we take a clos­er look at sor­bitol.

What is sorbitol?

Sorbitol is a sug­ar alco­hol that is formed when the mono­sac­cha­ride glu­cose gets com­pa­ny by two hydro­gen atoms. It’s accom­plished by hydrol­y­sis. Glucose is pro­duced from starch that comes from pota­toes, corn, wheat or any crop that is rich in starch.

We also find sor­bitol in nature. For exam­ple, dif­fer­ent kinds of berries and fruits such as plums, pears, straw­ber­ries and rasp­ber­ries. And rowan berries. It is from the Latin term for rowan berries – Sorbus aucu­paria – that sor­bitol got its name.

Read more about sor­bitol and how it is pro­duced in Sorbitol – from seeds to Eureba. Let’s move on with sor­bitol as an ingre­di­ent and how it can be used in practice.

Sorbitol instead of sugar?

Sorbitol has 50 to 60 per cent of the sweet­ness of sug­ar. That’s one rea­son why it’s chal­leng­ing to replace sug­ar only with sor­bitol. For the same amount of sweet­ness as sug­ar, twice as much sor­bitol is needed.

It’s sel­dom fea­si­ble to replace sug­ar with twice the amount of sor­bitol. The main prob­lem is not the dou­bled vol­ume and weight, but a less pleas­ant expe­ri­ence from the gas­tric region that too much sor­bitol can cause. No oth­er sug­ar alco­hol, allowed in foods, is as lax­a­tive as sor­bitol. You can use almost twice as much of oth­er sug­ar alco­hols, and close to four times as much of ery­thri­tol before it becomes a problem.

But sor­bitol has a few oth­er prop­er­ties that make it pop­u­lar for sug­ar reduction.

Low GI

For starters, sor­bitol has almost no effect on the blood sug­ar lev­el. Sorbitol is, how­ev­er, not best in class. First place goes to ery­thri­tol, which has no effect at all. But sor­bitol is pret­ty decent; its gly­caemic index (GI) is six with white bread as a ref­er­ence (GI 100).

Functional properties

Sorbitol is a hygro­scop­ic sug­ar alco­hol. That is, it can absorb mois­ture from the sur­round­ings. Thus, sor­bitol is not only a sweet­en­ing agent but also a humec­tant ingre­di­ent. Sorbitol attracts and releas­es mois­ture at a very slow pace.

The slow change in the degree of mois­ture pro­tects the food and con­tributes in that way to extend­ed shelf life. It also helps to main­tain prop­er tex­ture and that the food does get dry, which oth­er­wise can result in an unwant­ed mouth­feel.

Thanks to these prop­er­ties, we find sor­bitol in sauce, ice cream, jam, mar­malade, cere­als, baked goods and var­i­ous forms of desserts.

Stable ingredient

Sorbitol is a tough oppo­nent for mouth bac­te­ria. The oral bac­te­ria can­not break down sor­bitol (just like oth­er sug­ar alco­hols), thus pre­vent­ing acid attacks and caries.

A hot oven is not a prob­lem either. Sorbitol is heat resistant.

Cool

Sorbitol is endother­mic. This means that heat is tak­en from the sur­round­ings when sor­bitol is dis­solved in liq­uids. The result is a cool­ing effect. When you eat sor­bitol, you will get a cold sen­sa­tion in your mouth.

The cool­ing effect can be some­what neg­a­tive in some cas­es, but in chew­ing gum, cough drop and ice cream it is a good fit, espe­cial­ly if they are flavoured with pep­per­mint, cin­na­mon or mint.

Not that sweet

The sweet­ness in sug­ar alco­hols varies from 50 to close to 100 per cent of the sweet­ness of reg­u­lar sug­ar. Sorbitol is found at the low­er end of the scale – around 50 per cent.

The low sweet­ness com­pared to sug­ar and the lax­a­tive effect (worst of all sug­ar alco­hols) makes it prac­ti­cal­ly impos­si­ble to use sor­bitol alone to replace sug­ar. At least if the sweet­ness should be the same. In those cas­es, you will need a high-inten­si­ty sweetener.

What does the expert say?

We ask Ola Broström, inno­va­tion man­ag­er at Bayn, what he thinks of sorbitol.

When should sorbitol be considered?

- If it is cru­cial to keep the ingre­di­ents cost price down, sor­bitol is a hot can­di­date. It is one of the cheap­est sug­ar alco­hols on the mar­ket. But on the oth­er hand, you have to deal with the draw­backs of sor­bitol, and it costs both time to exper­i­ment how to fix the draw­backs and mon­ey for the oth­er ingre­di­ents that must also be added. So the total cost may not be low­er with sor­bitol com­pared to a more expen­sive ingredient.

What should you consider when using sorbitol?

– All sug­ar alco­hols retain water in the colon which can lead to diar­rhoea. That is why foods with more than 10 per cent sug­ar alco­hols should have infor­ma­tion that exces­sive con­sump­tion can have a lax­a­tive effect. With sor­bitol, you have to be extra care­ful. Its excel­lent abil­i­ty to retain mois­ture becomes a sig­nif­i­cant dis­ad­van­tage in the colon. Only 170 mil­ligrams of sor­bitol per kilo­gram of body weight is need­ed to reach the lim­it for lax­a­tive risk. For oth­er sug­ar alco­hols, the lim­it is 300–660 mil­ligram per kilo­gram of body weight. Therefore, you have to be extra care­ful when using sorbitol.

Ola’s three tips

1. Be care­ful with the dosage; too much sor­bitol is hard for the stom­ach to handle.
2. Sorbitol often needs oth­er ingre­di­ents to pro­vide sweet­ness. Choose wise­ly what ingre­di­ents might be right for you.
3. Don’t be blind­ed by the cheap price. Other ingre­di­ents and devel­op­ment costs can result in a hefty bill.

A helping hand

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