Sugar Substitutes

Creating sweet powders to substitute for sugar in beverages and recipes is a science today, not a matter of accidents in the lab. Creations go well beyond those little colored packages in a bowl on your restaurant table.

DiabetesHealth.com reprints an article by Michael R. Eades and Mary Dan Eades that goes over the pros and cons of about a dozen sugar substitutes. It doesn't excerpt well, so I advice you to take a look at the full article.

Substitutes considered include:

Acesulfame K
Aspartame
Cyclamate
Erythritol
Saccharine (Sweet 'n' Low)
Sorbitol, Mannitol and Maltitol
Stevia
Sucralose (Splenda)
Tagatose
Xylitol

NOTE: Though tagatose is derived from lactose, it undergoes additional processing steps before the final product is marketed. I know of no evidence that it should be considered a dairy product or dairy derivative. Tagatose is found naturally in very small amounts in milk, which may lead to some confusion, but that is not the route taken for commercial manufacturing.