As soon as I first learned about it as a child, I have always been in slightly bewildered awe about what the ‘sugar-free’ label on sweet products really signifies. Given the fact that these products are no less sweet than their regular ‘added-sugar’ counterparts, what’s the deal with being ‘sugar-free’ and sweet at the same time? More importantly, since these products hardly add any points to one’s calorie count, can we guzzle them up without worrying about weight gain or other sugar-related conditions?
What is a ‘Sugar-free’ product?
Sweet products (like candy bars, sweets, soft drinks, chocolates, etc.) that we buy from stores and markets are artificially sweetened by adding sweet additives (which can either be artificially synthesized compounds or natural sweeteners). According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a government body tasked with maintaining the standards of food and medicine in the US, all of the sugar that we find in foods are ‘one and two-unit sugars’; table sugar (sucrose), brown sugar, dextrose, lactose and honey are a few examples of ‘one and two-unit sugars’.
For a product to be labelled ‘sugar-free’, it should contain no more than 0.5 grams of those sugars in a single serving. Furthermore, the food must also be low in calories, in contrast to its ‘sugared’ counterpart, i.e. a product that has not been labelled ‘sugar-free’. A number of other terms, including ‘no sugar’, ‘free of sugar’, ‘without sugar’, ‘zero sugar’ and so on are also used, so don’t get confused by the variety of words; all of these terms basically mean the same thing.
Why are ‘sugar-free’ products so sweet?
To make a product taste sweet without adding too many calories for the consumer, something known as a ‘sweetening agent’ is added to the product. More commonly known as a ‘sugar substitute’ in everyday life (which is technically inaccurate), it is basically a food additive that provides a similar sweet taste (if not sweeter) to that of sugar without adding as many calories as regular sugar would. In fact, there are some substitutes that do not add calories or carbohydrates at all!
There are two main kinds of sweetening agents: sugar substitutes (aspartame, neotame, acesulfame potassium, stevia, saccharin and sucralose are the six FDA-approved substitutes) and sugar alcohols (like maltitol, xylitol and isomalt). Contrary to popular belief, sugar substitutes are just a type of sweetening agent, and aren’t the sole additives used in sugar-free items to make them sweet. While sugar alcohols do contain some calories and carbohydrates, sugar substitutes add almost no calories and therefore do not cause a spike in blood-sugar levels of the consumer.
In a nutshell, all of this means that you can eat any sweet product, like candy, and have it be just as sweet as regular candy (maybe even sweeter), while only adding a few (or no calories) to your body.
