Sweeteners, artificial sucrose

The sweeteners used in soft drinks can be divided into two main categories. These are the natural sweeteners, such as sucrose, invert syrups, corn-derived syrups and honey, and the high-intensity sweeteners (artificial sweeteners) such as saccharin, aspartame and acesulfame K. In most fruit juices and many soft drinks, except diet vaiieties, sugars are a major component of the product. 

Sucralose has the structure most similar to su crose Galactose replaces the glucose unit of sucrose and chlorines replace three of the hydroxyl groups Sucralose is the newest artificial sweetener having been approved by the U S Food and Drug Adminis tration in 1998 The three chlorine substituents do not dimmish sweetness but do interfere with the ability of the body to metabolize sucralose It there fore has no food value and IS noncaloric... 

Texture also influences the evaluation of taste. Sweetness in a Hquid is associated with body or viscosity. An artificially sweetened beverage that lacks body, therefore, may be rated quaUtatively lower than one equally sweet but containing sucrose. 

Food additives such as preservatives, sweetening agents, flavours, antioxidants, edible colours and nutritional supplements are added to the food to make It attractive, palatable and add nutritive value. Preservatives are added to the food to prevent spoilage due to microbial growth. Artificial sweeteners are used by those who need to check the calorie Intake or are diabetic and want to avoid taking sucrose. 

The worldwide demand for high potency sweeteners is increasing and, with blending of different sweeteners becoming a standard practice, the demand for the search of alternative natural sweeteners is also increasing. Due to many adverse effects of artificial sweeteners such as, for example, aspartame, sucralose, acesulphame K and the natural sweetener sucrose... 

Most of the food and feed additives are commoditized. This is also the case for the artificial sweeteners. The main products are Saccharin (550), Aspartame (Canderel, 200), Acesulfam K (Sunnett, 200), and Cyclamate (35). The figures in brackets are the sweetness intensity, whereby sucrose = 1. Sucra-lose, discovered in the 1980s by Tate Lyle, now taken over by Johnson Johnson s formidable marketing machine, is enjoying a revival as Spenda. 

Aspartame, discovered by Mazur in 1969 (5), is 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Aspartame has a large commercial market as an artificial sweetening agent. It is apparent that the sweetness exhibited by aspartame requires amino (AH, electropositive) and carboxyl (B, electronegative) groups of aspartic acid moiety and the hydrophobic side chain (X) of the phenylalanine moiety (4). The sweetness of aspartame is exhibited by the trifunctional units AH, B, and X. It is thought that when the trifunctional units of aspartame, X, AH, and B, fit the corresponding receptor sites, a sweet taste is produced. 

A variety of different artificial sweeteners have been approved for use in oral liquid dosage forms by the FDA. One general characteristic for artificial sweeteners is their very high sweetness compare to sucrose. This also results in a much lower concentration needed in the formulation, which can lower the cost and/or risk of incompatibility with the drug or other excipients. Additionally, a sugar-free formulation... 

BASF chemists2 report that this reaction is highly effective for dehydrogenation of both 2,5- and 4,5-dihydrothiophenes. It was examined in the course of a synthesis of an artificial sweetener thiophcnesaccharin (4), which is 1000 times sweeter than sucrose and which lacks a bitter aftertaste. The commercial synthesis of 4 from 3 includes this dehydrogenation as one step. 

Ice cream is manufactured by rapidly freezing and simultaneously whipping an approximately equal volume of air into the formulated mix (Berger, 1976 Keeney and Kroger, 1974). Ice cream mix contains a minimum of 10% milk fat and 20% total milk solids, except when chocolate, fruit or nuts, are added. In addition to milk solids, ice cream mix normally contains 10-15% sucrose, 5-7% corn sweetener, 0.2-0.3% stabilizer gum, <0.1% emulsifier, and small amounts of natural or artificial color and flavor ingredients. 

For example, the natural sugars (sucrose, fructose, etc.) arc best known for their contribution of sweetness to food products. The sugars, however, also perform other useful functions, including their natural preservative qualities and, in many foods such as baked goods, contribute considerable bulk to the finished product. As described under Sweeteners, a number of artificial, non-carbohydrate compounds serve as excellent sweeteners, but they lack the ability to achieve the desired bulk,... 

Examine the structures of sucrose, the natural sweetener, and saccharin, sodium cyclamate and aspartame (Nutrasweet), three of the most common artificial sweeteners. What, if any, structural features do these molecules have in common Compare electrostatic potential maps for the different sweeteners. Are there any significant features in common Based on your findings, do you think it is likely that entirely different artifical sweeteners might be discovered Explain. 

Influence of Sweeteners on Bitterness. In model system studies, natural fruit juice sugars were observed to raise the limonin threshold (24). An expanded study of natural and artificial sweeteners (26) demonstrated that sucrose, neohesperidin dihydro-chalcone (NHD), hesperetin dihydrochalcone glucoside (HDG) and aspartylphenylalanine methyl ester (AP) all raise the limonin threshold. At low sweetness levels HDG was the most effective followed by AP and NHD. Sucrose was without effect up to the 2% level. At sweetness levels equivalent to 1% sucrose, HDG, AP and NHD raised the limonin threshold in water from 1.0 ppm to 3.2, 2.5 and 1.3 ppm, respectively. Because of its high sweetness intensity, the concentration of NHD (16 ppm) was considerably lower than HDG (80 ppm) and AP (90 ppm). At 3-10% sucrose sweetness equivalency, the effectiveness of NHD increased substantially, sucrose moderately and HDG slightly, while that of AP decreased. Therefore, the sweeteners HDG, AP and NHD can effectively suppress limonin bitterness at low concentrations. 

Another very intriguing piece of work that gives insight into the crystal nucleation process has been carried out on the simple sulfonamide saccharin (8.6) by Roger Davey of the University of Manchester, UK. Saccharin is one of the oldest known artificial sweeteners about 300 times as sweet as sucrose... 

As might be expected, the search for an even better artificial sweetener continues. Alitame is a dipeptide formed from aspartic acid and alanine, with an unusual amide at the carboxylate end of the alanine. It is 2000 times as sweet as sucrose— 1 pound of alitame has the sweetening power of I ton of sucrose In addition, because an amide bond is more stable than an ester bond, alitame is more stable to hydrolysis than is aspartame. Therefore, alitame keeps its sweetness in aqueous solution better than aspar-... 

Electrochemical transducers work based on either an amperometric, potentio-metric, or conductometric principle. Further, chemically sensitive semiconductors are under development. Commercially available today are sensors for carbohydrates, such as glucose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, galactose, the artificial sweetener NutraSweet, for urea, creatinine, uric acid, lactate, ascorbate, aspirin, alcohol, amino acids and aspartate. The determinations are mainly based on the detection of simple co-substrates and products such as 02, H202, NH3, or C02 [142]. 

Dihydro-3-oxothieno[3,4-artificial sweeteners (thiophenesaccharins). The [3,4-d] isomer is 1000 times sweeter than sucrose and does not have the bitter metallic after-taste of saccharin. 

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that is 160 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar) when dissolved in water. It is marketed as Nutra-Sweet. The molecular formula of aspartame is Ci4H18N20.5. 

Aspartame, the artificial sweetener marketed as NutraSweet , is a dipeptide, which was discovered in 1965 by accident to be 100-200 times sweeter than sucrose. The discovery was originally made at G.D. Searle, which was later acquired by Monsanto. 

The artificial sweetener aspartame is the methyl ester of the dipeptide Asp-Phe. This synthetic peptide is 180 times sweeter (on a gram-for-gram basis) than sucrose (common table sugar). Both of the amino acids in aspartame have the naturally occurring L-configuration. If the D-amino acid is substituted for either Asp or Phe, the resulting compound tastes bitter. 

The increasing market demand for sweeteners resulted in the development of a number of chemicals. The major artificial sweeteners in the present market include acesulfame-K, alitame, aspartame, cyclamate, saccharin, and sucralose. Sweetness-intensity factors of several sweeteners compared with sucrose are given below ... 

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