Allulose Is an Emerging Sweetener That Has It All

Allulose’s chemical structure as a monosaccharide helps it closely mimic sucrose, which, as a disaccharide, has a similar structure. While allulose is considered to be approximately 70 percent as sweet as traditional sugar, allulose dissolves quickly in water and other liquids, and also behaves like traditional sugar in items such as baked goods and ice cream.

When formulating foods with allulose, food technologists must consider several technical characteristics aside from sweetness and solubility in liquids. Such characteristics include browning, crumb structure, freezing point, stability, and compatibility with other sweetening ingredients. In baked goods, allulose browns even more than sucrose, making it an ideal sweetener to lower the calories and sugar in products like cookies expected to have a deep golden hue. Adding allulose to desserts like cake also results in a crumb structure similar to sucrose or high fructose corn syrup. At the same time, allulose maintains good moisture-holding properties that can protect the moist, tender texture of finished baked goods.

Just as allulose acts like traditional sugar in baked goods, it also functions well in frozen desserts. As a monosaccharide, allulose behaves like a sugar: It decreases the freezing point of frozen products, and remains stable during freezing conditions. Frozen products made with allulose versus sucrose demonstrate similar “meltdowns,” although allulose-sweetened products may melt more quickly considering sucrose’s chemical structure as a disaccharide. Furthermore, in foods and beverages with low pH systems such as products with acidic fruit, allulose has good processing stability, even under high temperature conditions.

Finally, while the benefits of allulose are versatile enough for the sweetener to stand on its own, allulose may also be combined with more high-intensity sweeteners like sucralose and stevia, in cases where the desired level of sweetness is greater than the 70 percent allulose provides. In addition, when combined with these high-potency sweeteners, allulose has a temporal profile closer to sucrose, meaning that the onset and dissipation of sweetness is comparable.

Is Allulose A Sweet Hit?

Allulose is proving to be a sweetener that, in fact, has it all. The rare sugar contributes negligible calories and does not raise blood sugar levels, yet at the same time is able to impart the same sweet taste, texture, and other technical attributes consumers have come to love about foods and beverages sweetened with traditional sugar.

With the recent FDA draft guidance clarifying that allulose does not need to be labeled as a Total or Added Sugar, and can be calculated as 0.4 kcal/g, many are predicting allulose will be a hit with consumers.

Smolarski is a regulatory & scientific affairs manager at the Calorie Control Council. Reach her at [email protected].