Consumer Reports tests 13 lower-calorie and no-calorie sweeteners in lemonade, cookies and cake

Posted Monday, September 24, 2007

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Some sweeteners work as tastebud "foolers" in baking, but they're all fine for lemonade

Yonkers, NY — Consumer Reports tested 13 sugar substitutes to see if these calorie savers measured up. Most of the sweeteners tasted fine in lemonade, but of those used for baking, results were mixed.

CR notes that by far the best taste bud “fooler” in all categories is Estee Fructose, which is the type of sugar found in fruit and honey. Estee Fructose also produced better cakes than any of the other sweetener alternatives. However, it provided almost as many calories in the recipe as real sugar and costs almost five times as much. And people with diabetes are no longer advised to eat fructose because it may raise levels of lipids (fats) in the blood. The full report is available in the October issue of Consumer Reports. It’s also available online for free at www.ConsumerReports.org.

Most of the sweeteners tested by Consumer Reports did well in lemonade, but some differences were noticeable. For example, Equal packets left no artificial taste while Splenda packets had an artificial-sweetener flavor and was a little bitter. The other sweeteners tested by CR had varying degrees of artificial flavor. The cost of sugar alternatives varies widely from approximately 2 cents for the equivalent of 2 teaspoons of sugar (for example, Wal-Mart’s Great Value Altern) to 66 cents (Sweet Simplicity).
The Consumer Reports bake off found that consumers can not have their proverbial cake without some sugar. As noted above, Estee Fructose produced the best cake but the calorie savings were slim. A cake baked with Estee Fructose came in at 72 calories per slice while a cake baked with sugar contained 77 calories per slice. A cake baked with Domino Pure D’Lite Sugar Blend had 51 calories per slice and a mild artificial sweetener flavor, which the testers described as “not overpowering.” A slice of cake baked with Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking contained 38 calories and produced a mild artificial sweetener flavor.

Many recipes require at least some sugar to come out right and using Equal Granular to bake cakes and cookies bore out that point. CR confirmed that Equal can lose its sweetness during prolonged heating applications, such as baking. The cake baked with Equal emerged from the oven like a biscuit—flat, dense, and with no hint of sweetness.

In a separate test, CR found that two sugar stand-ins for Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies were indeed too much of a good thing. When just the brown sugar was replaced with Splenda Brown Sugar Blend, the result was a decent soft-baked cookie. But when CR replaced the white sugar with the Splenda Blend for Baking as well, the cookies came out dry, with a prominent, lingering artificial flavor. Consumer Reports’ Web site, www.ConsumerReports.org, provides tables for choosing the right sweetener for baking cakes and cookies.

CR notes that questions linger about the possible health effects of saccharin and aspartame, two of the oldest sweeteners, while the newest entry in the marketplace, the herbal product stevia, has only limited oversight from the FDA since it’s labeled as a dietary supplement, rather than a food additive. Ever since the government first approved aspartame for use in 1981, debate has raged about its possible risks. And the oldest artificial sweetener, saccharin, was almost banned in 1977 after studies in rats linked it to bladder cancer. Health experts consulted by Consumer Reports said that both aspartame and saccharin are probably fine in moderation.

Consumer Reports has no commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor appearing on this newspaper's web site.