5 Fantastic Benefits of Erythritol – The New-Age Sweetener

Sugar may satisfy your taste buds but seriously harm your body and cause you to develop diabetes and/or gain weight. This is where erythritol’s benefits come into the picture. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol that has almost no calories and has been used as an alternative to sugar for years.

But, is erythritol good for your health? Where does it come from? Does it have any side effects? Keep reading to find out the answers!

In This Article

What Is Erythritol? Where Does It Come From?

Erythritol is a natural sweetener that is gaining more and more popularity, especially within the food industry. It is widely used as a sweetener in calorie-reduced foods, candies, or bakery products.

Erythritol belongs to the family of sugar alcohols, also known as polyols, which are formed due to the hydrolyzation processes of the aldehyde or ketone group in various carbohydrates.

Polyols are naturally abundant in fruits and vegetables like grapes and mushrooms as well as fermented foods like soy sauce (1).

StyleCraze TriviaScottish chemist John Stenhouse discovered erythritol in 1848. However, it was isolated in 1852 and first used as a commercial sugar alcohol (sweetener) in the 1990s.

You might be wondering, why is erythritol used widely? What are its selling points? Here you go!

What Are The Valuable Properties Of Erythritol?

Erythritol is widely used as an artificial sweetener mainly because it is mildly sweet. It is as sweet as sucrose but with lesser calories.

If you add one teaspoon of sugar to your tea, one spoon of erythritol should do (volume for volume).

But if you use sucralose, which is a synthetic substitute that is much sweeter, you might have to add only one-fourth of a teaspoon.

You get the drift, right?

Apart from having sugar equivalence, erythritol offers the following benefits.