Eating sugar without getting fat
Sugar that tastes like ‘real’ sugar but does not make you fat: the first production has been started. The German company Savanna Ingredients developed a method to grow sugar without calories.
Allulose
Savanna Ingredients is a German start-up that originated from the innovation centre of the sugar producer Pfeifer & Langen. After developing cellobiosis, a lactose-free lactose, several years ago, they have been working on a way to grow sugar with no calories for the past three years. It concerns the sweetener allulose, which also occurs in fruit in small amounts. By changing beet sugar on molecular level, the calories can be encapsulated. Because it is not an ordinary sugar, but a chemically modified carbohydrate, our body cannot convert the substance into the metabolism. Therefore, the sweetener is excreted in the urine after uptake without having any effect on calories or weight.
Overweight
Overweight and obesity are a major problem in the UK. If the current trends are not halted, half of Britons will be obese by 2045. In addition, nowadays about 10 percent of adults in the UK have type two diabetes. This type of diabetes is closely related to excess weight. The first measures to stop these trends were taken on April 8th by introducing a tax on sugary drinks. This means that consumers pay 18p or 24p extra per litre according to the amount of extra sugar added to the drink. A good first step that is already producing results. However, this will not be enough to stop the entire trend and therefore any development that is an alternative to ordinary sugar or that causes less caloric intake can be interesting.
The difference between allulose and other sugar alternatives
There are of course already several alternatives for sugar such as stevia or the alcoholic sugars erythritol and xylitol. These alternatives, however, have characteristics that are very different from the characteristics of real sugar, such as taste and technical properties. There are no such differences between real sugar and allulose; it is real sugar with the taste of real sugar. This is precisely why the employees of Savanna Ingredients are convinced that this new sugar has great potential and they want to submit an application to allow allulose as a food ingredient in the EU in the short term.
Source: Bbc.com, telegraph.co.uk, ad.nl, foodholland.nl
