Sugar substitutes

Sugar substitute is an umbrella term for anything that tastes sweet but isn't table sugar – and the differences in calories and effects are huge. There are three groups you should keep apart: sweeteners, sugar alcohols and “natural” sugars such as honey or syrup.

Sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame K or steviol glycosides (from the stevia plant) are 200 to 600 times sweeter than sugar and provide practically no calories. They are approved in the EU and come with safe maximum limits. Sugar alcohols such as erythritol (almost 0 kcal per gram) and xylitol (around 2.4 kcal per gram compared with 4 for sugar) look like sugar and can be used for baking – but in larger amounts they have a laxative effect. Honey, agave syrup and maple syrup, on the other hand, are 60 to 80% sugar, and coconut blossom sugar is even over 90%: they sound healthier but bring almost as many calories.

In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a guideline that advises against using sweeteners to lose weight: in the long term, studies showed no benefit for body weight. The reason probably lies in behaviour, not in the sweetener – if you only replace the sweetness, you stay used to very sweet foods.

The most effective strategy in the kitchen is therefore to reduce sweetness gradually: a third less sugar in your cake recipe (hardly anyone can taste the difference), plain yoghurt with fruit instead of fruit yoghurt, water with lemon instead of fizzy drinks. After two to three weeks, what you used to eat suddenly tastes too sweet. Diet drinks can be a stepping stone if they replace large amounts of fizzy drinks.

For children: no honey in the first year of life (risk of infant botulism, a rare but dangerous poisoning caused by bacterial spores that a baby's gut isn't yet equipped to fight off), sweeteners are unnecessary for toddlers – and xylitol is toxic to dogs, so chewing gum and baked goods containing it don't belong on the floor.