What's the Best Sugar Substitute?
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Discovered in 1976 by Tate & Lyle scientists, sucralose is sold under the trade names Splenda (the yellow packets) and SucraPlus. 600 times as sweet as sugar, it has the closest taste to sugar and is highly heat-stable. When baking, use one cup of sucralose (Splenda) to replace one cup of sugar. The sweetness is the same but there might be some textural differences present. Recipes using sucralose will also bake faster so heating times need to be adjusted.
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Sucralose is the only artificial sweetener to be ranked "safe" by the consumer advocacy group, Center for Science in the Public Interest. It's favored by dieters, diabetics, and people suffering from hypoglycemia because each individual packet contains only 3.31 calories.
SACCHARIN
About 300 times as sweet as sugar, saccharin has a metallic and bitter aftertaste compared to other substitutes. Marketed as Sweet and Low (the pink packets), saccharin is heat-stable and can be used for baking but only for half the sugar in the recipe: six packets for each quarter cup of sugar.
Saccharin has been linked to bladder cancer in rates. It was banned in Canada in the 1970s while in the US the FDA instituted warning labels for all products containing saccharin. After further studies, the US lifted the warning labels in 2001.
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