Health New sugar without calories - does that work at all?

Allulose: Real sugar with almost no calories?

Almost zero calorie sugar has been around in the US and some Asian countries under the name of allergy or psicosis. A start-up of the sugar factory Pfeifer & Langen now wants to quickly apply for the approval of this sugar in the European Union and get into large-scale production in the Rhineland.

The young company has developed a method to produce sugar with almost no calories on a large scale from beet sugar. The company claims to change the molecular structure of the beet sugar, so that the energy content is encapsulated in a sense.

Human metabolism no longer recognizes allulose as an energy source. There are currently no health concerns. On the contrary, due to the extremely low calorie content obesity and thus severe secondary diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart attack or stroke are counteracted.

Various committees and increasingly also the food industry are currently trying to reformulate the sugar and salt content of food. And consumers are constantly looking for low-sugar foods. Accordingly, for the almost calorie-free sugar - with appropriate pricing - an interesting market can be expected.

Production is a complex food technology process. Beet sugar is the starting product. That should be glad also the European sugar beet farmers. In terms of taste and function, allulose should be suitable for sweetening food and drinks. Whether it works with the baking, should still be found out. The sugar retains a residual calorie content of 0.2 kcal per gram.

Usual table sugar has 4 kcal per gram. The new company therefore expects that a "no calorie" label will be approved by the EU. And that would be crucial for customer acceptance and rapid market success. Britta Klein, bzfe, sb