Fructose is so efficient in its sweetening power that is common in commercially prepared foods today as sucrose.
It is a sweetener that is found naturally in fresh fruit and honey. It cans sweeten with fewer calories than sugar, is easier on the teeth and enters the bloodstream less rapidly.
Fructose is a monosaccharide, with five carbon furanose ring structure rather than the six carbon pyranose ring structure of glucose. It sweetness ranges from 120 to 160, varying from solid through various concentrations in aqueous solution.
Increasing the fructose content reduces viscosity; the level of sweetness increases. High levels of fructose limit the crystallization risk of the syrups, because fructose crystallizes only with difficulty.
Major uses are as sweetener in carbonated soft drinks and as sweetener/ preservative/ phase stabilizer in canned and frozen foods and preserves.
Crystalline fructose, the most expensive sweetener, appears in reduced caloric formulations and dietetic foods because its sweetness/caloric ratio is higher than that of sucrose.
The sweetener in commercial products is usually not fructose alone but a combination of fructose, glucose and other sugar.
In the mid-1980s, 55% high fructose corn syrup was adopted by the carbonated beverage industry and became prominent sweetener in soft drink. It was developed thirty years ago as a cheap alternative to sucrose, or table sugar.
High fructose corn syrup of HFCS is a mixture of fructose and glucose. The two most common mixtures are HFCS-55, which contains 55% fructose and 42% glucose, and HFCS-42, which contains 42% fructose and 53% glucose.
It’s cheap to make, tastes sweeter than sugar so manufacturer can use less of it.
Fructose as a sweetener
