You know the saying “sweet as sugar”? Well, it turns out there are a lot of sweeteners that are even sweeter than regular sugar!
Some of the sweetest sweeteners include:
- Advantame
- Neotame
- Sucralose
We’ll review 11 of the sweetest sugars and sweeteners next!
Sweetness of sugars and sweeteners
When you think of sugar, you probably think of table sugar (sucrose) – also called white sugar, granulated sugar, etc…
Other types of sugars and sweeteners are often described in terms of being more or less sweet than sucrose. Some of these sweeteners are high-intensity artificial sweeteners because they are thousands of times more sweet than sugar.
We’ll review the sweetest sugars and sweeteners next!
11 of the sweetest sugars & sweeteners
- Acesulfame potassium – 200 times sweeter than sugar
Also called Ace-K, acesulfame potassium is also combined with aspartame to make the popular sweetener Equal (the blue packet).
- Advantame – 20,000 times sweeter than sugar
Advantame is one of the high-intensity sweeteners approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It’s not as popular as some of the other artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose, though (we’ll cover those next).
- Aspartame – 200 times sweeter than sugar
Aspartame is one of the more popular artificial sweeteners on the market. It’s sold under the name Nutrasweet, unless it’s combined with Ace-K to make Equal.
- Honey – 25% sweeter than sugar
Honey is a natural, unrefined sweetener (also the only one that isn’t vegan-friendly) and it’s a bit sweeter than regular sugar, but not as much as artificial sweeteners.
- Maple syrup – three times as sweet as sugar
It takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make a gallon of this sweet syrup, which is made by boiling the sap to remove the water. Like honey, maple syrup is a natural and unrefined sweetener, and unlike honey it’s vegan-friendly.
- Maple sugar – around twice as sweet as sugar
Maple sugar is made from maple syrup – it’s just boiled so long that all of the water is removed and a granulated sugar remains!
- Monk fruit sweetener – 100-250 times sweeter than sugar
This sweetener is popular as a natural option that doesn’t contain calories or sugar. It’s also Paleo- and keto-friendly.
- Neotame – around 8,000 times sweeter than sugar
Neotame is 30-60 times sweeter than aspartame, which is already super sweet! Neotame is stable at high temperatures, a characteristic that not all artificial sweeteners have.
- Saccharin – 500 times sweeter than sugar
Also called Sweet ‘N Low, saccharin is the first artificial sweetener ever discovered (back in the late 1800s!). It’s one of the artificial sweeteners approved by the FDA.
There was some concern about saccharin and its relation to bladder cancer in rats, but according to a study, “humans would need to drink the equivalent of 800 twelve-ounce diet sodas with saccharin daily to reach the carcinogenic doses that induced rat bladder cancer.”
Of course, whether you choose artificial sweeteners or regular sweeteners is a personal choice!
- Stevia – 200-350 times sweeter than sugar
Like monk fruit sweetener, stevia is popular as a natural sugar substitute. Since sugar alcohols and artificial sweeteners aren’t allowed on Paleo, many Paleo dieters turn to stevia and monk fruit sweetener.
- Sucralose – 600 times sweeter than sugar
Sucralose (Splenda) is one of the most popular artificial sweeteners and is used in a variety of no-sugar-added and sugar-free products. It’s made from sugar but doesn’t contain any actual sugar, and is way sweeter than table sugar.
FAQs:
The sweetest artificial sweetener is advantame, which is around 20,000 times sweeter than sugar.
Allulose and erythritol are often described as tasting the most like sugar without providing sugar or calories.
Both stevia and monk fruit sweetener are sweeter than sugar but are considered natural, not artificial.
Sugar alcohols are generally not as sweet as regular sugar, unlike artificial sweeteners like sucralose and aspartame which are much sweeter than sugar.
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