Monk fruit sugar is a very cost-effective sweetener. While increasing sweetness, it also has health benefits such as expectorant, antitussive, and blood sugar control. Compared with stevia, which is also a natural plant-derived sweetener, monk fruit sugar is superior in taste and solves the "fatal" aftertaste. The most unique thing is that monk fruit sugar is applicable to two sets of standards for food and
Food Additives, and there is no limit on the amount of addition, breaking the application limitations of previous sugar substitutes.
1. What Is Mogroside?
Mogroside, also often called monk fruit extract, mogroside, mogrosin, monk fruit saponin, etc., is a natural sweetener derived from monk fruit pulp. In particular, although it comes from the fruit, it is a non-sugar substance belonging to the "triterpenoid compound", has a strong sweetness and almost no calories, and is the "biggest contributor" to providing sweetness for monk fruit.
With its high sweetness, low calories, natural, safe and non-toxic, stable properties, etc., mogroside is currently widely used as a new type of sugar substitute in various foods and health products. It can also be consumed by patients with obesity and diabetes.
Although monk fruit has only "come out of the circle" in recent years, it has long been associated with the food and medicinal fields. According to legend, it was first used by Luohan in Buddhism in the 13th century, so it was named "Luohan". Monk fruit is native to tropical and subtropical mountainous areas such as Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, and Jiangxi. As a unique Chinese medicinal and edible plant, it has a recorded medicinal history of more than 300 years. Because of its benefits of clearing heat and relieving cough, resolving phlegm, moistening the lungs, promoting fluid and quenching thirst, and detoxifying the intestines, it was included in the "Chinese Pharmacopoeia" in 1977. It is also believed to have the effect of prolonging life and has gained the reputation of "Oriental Magic Fruit" and "Longevity Fruit".
In the 20th century, monk fruit was introduced to the United States as a herbal medicine. American scholar C.H.Lee discovered mogroside in 1975. Since then, scholars at home and abroad have begun to conduct in-depth research and isolated more than 20 similar compounds, among which mogroside V (M5) is the main sweetness source of mogroside, and its sweetness is 425 times that of 5% sucrose. This provides an important idea for mogroside as a natural sweetener.
2. Application Advantages of Monk Fruit Sugar
(I) Medicine and food are of the same origin, and health attributes
As an economic and medicinal plant with a long history, monk fruit is one of the earliest approved "medicine and food" substances in China. The mogroside extracted from it can play a role in expectoration and cough relief, anti-oxidation, balancing blood sugar levels, inhibiting cancer cells, neuroprotection, and inhibiting fat production. It can be used in food, functional food and medicine.
At the same time, mogroside is a natural
Plant Extract, which is non-caloric, non-toxic, and no studies have shown that it has side effects, and it is safe to eat. As a natural high-intensity sweetener, unlike stevioside, the glycoside attachments of mogroside can be digested by intestinal microbiota and excreted from urine, so there is no human tolerance limit and no burden on the body.
In particular, due to its non-absorbable nature, mogroside was approved as an alternative sweetener in 1996 for use in health foods for obese and diabetic patients. Studies have shown that mogroside mainly controls blood sugar and improves early clinical symptoms of diabetes through pharmacological effects such as inhibiting food glucose conversion, increasing postprandial insulin levels, and stimulating insulin secretion. It can also inhibit lung cancer cells caused by hyperglycemia. The use of non-sugar mogroside can also reduce glucose intake, inhibit fat production, and achieve lipid-lowering effects by improving antioxidant defense.
(II) "Dual Standard" Safety Guarantee
Unlike other sugar substitutes such as stevioside, mogroside is applicable to two sets of standards for food and food additives. It is safe and has a wider range of applications and is not limited by the amount of addition. As a food additive, mogroside was approved by the US FDA and China in 1995 and 1996 respectively. In addition, as natural raw materials, monk fruit powder and monk fruit concentrate can be added to food and beverages in accordance with food standards and directly labeled as "monk fruit powder/monk fruit juice". At the same time, it can also be used in products with "clean labels".
In addition, mogroside has also been approved by official departments in Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and other countries for safety, and can be consumed by children, diabetics, pregnant women and nursing mothers. Japan has been importing monk fruit from China in large quantities since the 1990s. In addition to using it as a natural sweetener to make throat lozenges and functional beverage effervescent tablets, it has also used mogroside to develop a variety of health foods, such as anti-allergic granules, weight loss foods, blood sugar-lowering foods, and immunity-enhancing foods. The United Kingdom has developed cube sugar made from a mixture of soluble starch and mogroside.
3. Comparison with Other Sweeteners
In terms of taste, new artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame potassium and sucralose taste similar to sucrose, while 0-calorie natural sweeteners extracted from plants have their own unique flavors. Low-concentration monk fruit glycosides taste very close to sucrose, with the fragrance of monk fruit, and the sweetness lasts for a long time.
The common specifications of monk fruit extracts on the market are 20% to 25% and 50% to 60% of monk fruit glycoside V content. The former retains part of the natural flavor of monk fruit, which can play a role in sweetening and enhancing the flavor, while the latter removes the miscellaneous flavors and only retains the sweetness of monk fruit. Its sweetness is pure and clean, soft and refreshing, and long-lasting. The sweetness is slow and lasts for a long time, and there is no bitterness, astringency, metallic taste or other bad aftertaste after sweetening.
Compared with artificial sweeteners, natural sweeteners usually have lower safety risks. Among them, mogroside and stevia are high-power natural sweeteners with a sweetness-to-price ratio of 0.21 and 0.91 respectively.
4. Application Fields of Monk Fruit Sugar
The application of monk fruit sugar can be roughly divided into two directions. One is to compound monk fruit powder or monk fruit glycoside with other sweeteners to make monk fruit zero-calorie sugar for use as table sugar. In addition, as a substitute for sucrose, it is widely used in beverages, snacks, chocolate, meal replacements, baked products and other fields.
(I) Monk fruit zero-calorie sugar
The common monk fruit zero-calorie sugar on the market is usually compounded with monk fruit sugar and erythritol to make a compound sweetener, which is used to replace sucrose on the table. Among them, the content of erythritol is about 99.6%, and mogroside accounts for about 0.04%.
(II) Food and beverage application
The diverse types of monk fruit sugar allow it to achieve good application effects in different subdivided application fields of food and beverage. For example, monk fruit concentrated juice is more suitable for making bread and tea, while cakes and biscuits made with monk fruit glycosides or monk fruit powder will have better effects.
