Ice cream, candy, soda…consuming sugary foods can lead to adverse health consequences like weight gain, diabetes and heart disease. Data confirms that Americans consume significantly above the recommended amount of sugar. But cutting out sugar completely isn’t really viable or desirable for many.
Sugar substitutes and alternatives were developed to fill the role of sugar. These can be found in many foods and are labeled as such. Sugar substitutes are generally sweeter than ultra processed sugar, so the amount needed to sweeten food and drinks is very little. These sugars can be from fruit that has been concentrated, vegetable juices, other plant based sugar alternatives (stevia) and packaged sweeteners or like sugars from honey and syrups.
We conducted a study on alternative sweeteners in yogurt here at the Cornell Sensory Evaluation Center back in December 2024.
