Cutting Sugar in Foods Not an Easy Task for Researchers

CHICAGO – Midway through the afternoon, when the belly yearns for snacks, three NutraSweet executives are going wild: cola, orange drink, citrus punch, chocolate milk, more cola, pound cake and crispy squares of coconut pie – all test kitchen concoctions made with artificial sweeteners.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the average American eats about 100 pounds of added sugars a year, up 30 percent since the 1980s.

After years of loading snacks with sugar, food manufacturers are developing more reduced-sugar brands so that consumers can have their cake and eat it.

To tackle the problem, some are cutting down just slightly on sugar in their products, or artfully combining high-intensity artificial sweeteners to find just the right combinations to mimic real sugar.

Other companies are turning to the latest research in genetics and chemistry. Now there are humming labs, seeking out “enhancer” chemicals that accentuate the effects of real sugars, thus allowing less to be used.

Artificial sweeteners stick to the same receptor but to different parts, and with different speeds and tightness. Those factors translate into subtle differences in onset of taste, intensity and length of sweetness.

The first artificial sweetener was found in 1879 by accident.

Two chemists at Johns Hopkins University, Constantine Fahlberg and Ira Remsen, were trying to make new chemical dyes from coal tar derivatives when a vessel boiled over in the lab one day. Fahlberg failed to properly wash his hands before a meal and noted how sweet his fingers tasted.

He traced the sweetness back to a two-ringed chemical called benzoic acid sulfanilamide. Fully 300 times sweeter than sugar, it is indigestible by the body, and thus calorie-free. He later dubbed the chemical saccharin, from saccharum, the Latin word for sugar.