Whether to cut down on calories, to avoid health risks, or whatever reason, some people use sugar substitutes, also known as high intensity sweeteners, to sweeten their foods and beverages. Sugar alternatives can be used on their own to sweeten things like iced tea or coffee, or they can be used as an ingredient in other dishes when baking or cooking.

Sugar alternatives are a great option for those that have found they are consuming too much sugar. For daily sugar intake recommendations, check out our last blog post.

Sugar alternatives are termed ‘high-intensity’ because small amounts of them achieve the same level of sweetness as sugar. In other words, you do not need a lot of them! In addition, these alternatives do not add many, if any, calories to the foods and beverages they are added to, and typically do not raise blood-sugar levels.

A Wide Variety of Sugar Substitutes

There are a variety of sugar substitutes on the market and knowing which one is good for your purpose can be confusing.

The following graphic covers six common sugar substitutes, their sweetness, and the conversion from sugar to the alternative that you will need to know for cooking. The six common sugar substitutes covered are:

• Saccharine, or Sweet and Low
• Aspartame, also known as Equal or NutraSweet
• Sucralose, also called Splenda
• Stevia
• Swerve
• Monk Fruit