Sweet Choices
How cane sugar alternatives brought sweetness to the masses
Sugar, which chemists call “sucrose,” has been a mainstay of Western diets for centuries. It’s evolved from a symbol of wealth and influence to being one of the first global commodities.
The modern sweetener market can be traced back to the nineteenth century, with the development of commercial beet sugar production. Beet sugar was sweet, affordable, and chemically indistinguishable from cane sugar. Aided by advancements in technology, it became a commercial product. While access to cane sugar had typically been reserved for wealthy elites, beet sugar became a crucial factor in a sweet revolution.
As the market for sugar mirrored demand, cooks around the world discovered new ways of utilizing sugar—baking, cooking, and mixing it into beverages and confections. With further developments in food production technology, the search for sucrose alternatives was on.
In 1971, Japanese scientist Yoshiyuki Takasaki invented a new process for extracting corn’s sweetness into a sweetener. Like beet sugar, Takasaki’s corn sweetener (known as high fructose corn syrup, because it has about the same amount of fructose as sucrose, but more than corn syrup) was cheaper than its alternatives—anywhere from 20 percent to 70 percent less. And it had nearly the same taste and chemical makeup as sucrose.
Click here to compare cane, beet, corn sugar.
High fructose corn syrup proved to have a number of advantages to cane and beet sugar. Not only was it cheaper to produce and transport, but it also helped to extend foods’ shelf life.
Today, consumers have more sweetener options than ever before: dextrose, invert sugar, agave nectar, evaporated and hydrolyzed cane juice, and several non-caloric sweeteners. And new sweeteners are still being invented.
The history of sweeteners is a story of variety, but it’s also a saga of bitter competition. The rise of the sweetener market meant more ways for consumers to satisfy their sweet tooth, but also a more vicious rivalry between purveyors of sweetness.
