Although no one is bitter about a sweet, the type of sweetener that we consume in many foods has generated a wide debate in recent years due to its impact on health.
He Refined sugar continues to be the most used by the food industry and the most consumed. However, its association with obesity, diabetes or oral health problems has caused many consumers to seek alternatives, including artificial sweeteners such as saccharin or aspartame.
In recent years, however, the market has turned to other options of natural origin, such as fructose and stevia. But the lack of knowledge about the properties of each sweetener and the dissemination of studies without scientific consensus have cast new shadows on the possible effects on our health of all of them.
Common sugar, or sucrose, is obtained from sugar cane and beets. and is made up of glucose and fructose. According to the dietitian and nutritionist María Egusquiza Taramona, it provides 4 kilocalories per gram. The World Health Organization (WHO) advises that its consumption does not exceed 10% or even less than 5% of the recommended daily calories.
Due to its caloric intake, it is its high intake that is linked to different diseases, such as obesity or type 2 diabetes. Some studies, such as that of the pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, from the University of California-San Francisco (USA), maintain that the worst thing is not the calories, but that it is toxic: due to the way it is metabolized, it would also damage the liver. Most experts, on the other hand, only advise against high consumption, and associate the problems that it can cause to a greater extent with obesity.
fructose
Fructose is a sweetener that contains the same kilocalories per gram as sugar and is found in fruits and vegetables. This ratio does not make it advisable in principle in specific diets. However, its sweetening power is much greater than sugar, so we will need a smaller amount to achieve the same sweetness, according to Egusquiza Taramona.
stevia
Greater prominence and controversy has generated stevia, a sweetener obtained from the leaves of a plant (Stevia rebaudiana) from South America. In any case, what we find in supermarkets is steviol glycoside (E-960), since in Spain it can only be consumed as a processed product, since the sale of the leaf is not authorized.
As Egusquiza Taramona points out, stevia hardly provides kilocalories (0.2kcal per gram), which makes it more advisable for people with diabetes. Beyond that, there is insufficient scientific evidence on other beneficial health properties with which this product is usually marketed.
But what is the best option? For Egusquiza Taramona, the best thing is avoid these sweeteners as much as possible, because sugar is already present in the vast majority of processed products that we find in the supermarket. “In case you want to add sweetness to my yogurt, the healthiest thing would be to add, for example, strawberries or a few pieces of banana,” she advises.