These days, everyone is avoiding sugar, and for good reason! Excessive sugar consumption has been shown to increase your risk for metabolic syndrome, inflammatory diseases, neuroadaptations to your reward system, and other adverse health outcomes (1, 2). Since it’s very trendy right nw to avoid sugar, lots of product manufacturers are creating items that have sugar alternatives. I’ll discuss the popular sugar alternatives monk fruit and stevia below.
Fun fact, I’m writing this while drinking a stevia sweetened beverage, then walked to my kitchen for some candy since i was suddenly craving sugar.
What is monk fruit?
Monk fruit has been around for awhile, but only recently its become more widely accessible, and is also known as Luo Han Kuo. Though it has zero calories, it does still contain glucose and fructose (which are natural sugars), and is more than 100 times sweeter than regular sugar. Even though natural sugars are present in monk fruit, it’s the antioxidants, mogrosides, that make this fruit so sweet (3). During processing, the mogrosides and natural sugars are separated, so monk fruit sweetener contains no glucose and no fructose.
What is stevia?
Stevia sweeteners are made from the stevia plant, and have been used for centuries, just link monk fruit. Stevia is more than 200 times sweeter than regular sugar! It also has no calories, and is considered a non-nutritive sweetener, just like monk fruit. The FDA does not recognise stevia as safe in its leaf or crude extract form. However, the FDA does recognise stevia in its refined form as: GRAS (generally recognised as safe), which is a general safety recognition of foods used for its intended purposes. You can find out more here.
What are they used for?
The obvious one I’ve been talking about earlier… sweeteners! Since both of these products come from plants, and they are zero-calorie, it makes them an attractive ingredient for items that need a little extra sweet stuff without the extra calories. Plus, since they are both over 100 times sweeter than regular sugar, less is needed to make the product just as sweet.
Here are some others uses in the research:
Blood glucose control:
Monk fruit extract in its purest form has shown some insulin secreting effects by stimulating the beta cells of the pancreas (3), making it low on the glycemic index. This has been demonstrates in other studies with many other non-nutritive sweeteners, such as stevia.
Weight management:
Stevia and monk fruit have been used for weight management because… guess what? They are non-nutritive (4). Which means that they have no calories. this can be helpful for weight management as a person can drink a sweetened beverage without the extra calories from sugar.
However, recent research suggests that intakes of non-nutritive sweeteners, like stevia and monk fruit, have little effect on total daily calorie intakes. What they found were men who consumed non-nutritive sweetened beverages ate the same amount of calories throughout the day as those who consumed sucrose sweetened beverages by compensating how much they ate at meals vs the sucrose sweetened beverage group (8). So what does that mean? Those who drank non-nutritive sweetened beverages ate more food to compensate for not receiving the extra calories from sucrose.
It’s possible that our human taste receptors recognise something as sweet, however, chemically, our bodies never end up receiving the calories (10). Metabolism starts when we place food in ours mouths, and this could have an effect on how our bodies continue to process food and nutrients, and alter our metabolism and cravings for other sweet calorie0filled treats.
Are they good for you?
Studies have not shown any life-changing beneficial effects of consuming these sweeteners long-term, except that they are low on the glycemic index and may be a good alternative for people living with diabetes. Also, research hasn’t demonstrated detrimental effects of consuming these either. Personally, I don’t like the taste of these non-nutritive sweeteners, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. Plus, they are refined and processed, just like table sugar. So you’ll have to decide for yourself what you want for your health and wellness, and if sourcing/sustainability is important to you. You may need to do some research as to how these products are grown, produced, and refined to make an informed choice.
Are they bad for you?
Which one is better?
They are SO similar, that you really can’t go wring with either! Stevia can be more expensive than sugar, whereas monk fruit is difficult to grow and expensive to export. Health-wise, as of this point in the research, both are nearly equal.
If you are allergic to certain flowers, use stevia with caution and look into which flower allergy should be considered with caution for stevia consumption.
Bottom line
There is no evidence to determine the overly beneficial or overly harmful effect stevia or monk fruit have on the body (9).
Both are a good option for no-calorie sweetened beverages, or even some food products.
It’s possible you’ll compensate at meal times for the calories your body thought you consumed but really didn’t.
References:
(1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29772560/
(2) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30945139/
(3) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21351724/
(4) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29982648/
(5) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27784241/
(6) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26479769/
(7) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26712732/
(8) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27956737/
(9) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28886707/
(10) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29859661/
