Sugar is a carbohydrate. Natural sugar is the fuel for the human body. However, too much sugar will lead to health risks and obesity. To cope with this crisis, manufacturers have launched products with sweetness but without calories, including natural and artificial sweeteners, also known as sugar substitutes.
Manufacturers understand that consumers look for real things. To hide the truth, some of them deliberately disguise the substitute products by using misleading product names. Usually they borrowed the Chinese character of sugar and used it as the Chinese title for their sweeteners / sugar substitutes. Consumers may check the products’ English names and they’ll discover that the word “sugar” does not exist at all; neither do the chemical names of sugar which usually end with “-ose” like “Glucose”, “Sucrose”, “Tagatose”, “Xylose”, etc, but not with “-ol” like “Erythritol”, “Xylitol”, etc.
I. Erythritol
It’s not sugar at all! It’s derived from sugar through the process of fermentation. According to the definition defined by Centre of Food Safety in Hong Kong, sugar alcohol is not sugar but merely a carbohydrate(7)!
II. Xylitol
Xylitol is only a sugar alcohol manufactured by a large-scale industrial chemical process from D- xylose – a true Rare Sugar. Though Xylitol has a low GI, it cannot match D-xylose which has been clinically verified to inhibit sucrase activity and therefore blocking sugar-breakdown and absorption, effectively stabilizing blood sugar.
III. Stevia
Low-cal, leaf-derived stevia has been perceived as a natural sugar-replacement. Its sweetness comes from steviol glycosides. The industry calls stevia a sweetener, not sugar(8)(9).Product names which show the Chinese characters of “healthy sugar 健康糖” are totally misleading. A certain brand contains even mainly erythritol (99.5%), with just a few percentages of stevia. Furthermore, these products do not taste like sugar. Consumers dislike the bitter under-taste conferred by stevia. They just can’t enjoy their drinks and meals with this non-sugar stevia.
IV. Luo Han Guo
It is perceived as a natural sugar-substitute. Its sweetness comes from Mogroside V. Apparently, it is a sweetener, not sugar.
