Navigating the many roads to sugar reduction
Less sugar but same great taste … that’s what today’s consumers want. Formulators must factor in better-for-you ingredients like nuts and seeds, ancient grains, fiber, protein and functional oils, all of which can produce off-flavor notes in baked goods. Sometimes these off-flavors are noticeable when the product is fresh from the oven. Other times they intensify over a product’s shelf life, as in the case of unsaturated fatty acids oxidizing and turning rancid. Without the well-rounded sweetness of sugar to hide such undesirables, these off-flavors become more pronounced. Formulating for reduced sugar, better-for-you ingredients and great taste becomes the ultimate puzzle.
“Bakers are using flours that are whole grain and gluten-free and adding vegetable proteins to achieve the natural label that the consumer desires,” said Charithra Rai, senior innovation scientist, Sensient Flavors. “Unfortunately, these ingredients can introduce off-notes. In addition, reducing sugar can lead to texture and mouthfeel issues. Not addressing these challenges could lead to undesirable taste of the finished product.”
Reduced sugar is still a popular consumer trend despite these formulation difficulties.
“As this attribute moves away from trend status and towards the standard, the demand for products with lower sugar content will grow,” stated Philip Caputo, Virginia Dare’s marketing and consumer analytics manager. “In many application categories, having a product with a high sugar content is becoming a barrier to entry.”
The product needs to be altered, among other things, to balance out the flavour when a baker eliminates sugar from a recipe. Extra instruments are flavour enhancers, modulators, and maskers, which are referred to as flavour modifiers. These could be natural flavours that amplify desired tastes or ones that conceal or prevent unwanted ones.
“While today’s consumers pressure bakers to reduce or eliminate sugar in their products, they are unwilling to sacrifice sweetness, mouthfeel and delicious taste, and sugar is often largely responsible for delivering those benefits,” said Dave Douglass, business development manager, Apura Ingredients. “Because of this, low- and no-calorie clean label sweeteners, such as allulose, stevia and monk fruit, continue to grow in popularity as alternatives to sugar in baked goods.”
These tools allow bakers to deliver on sweetness. But sweet is just one of many roles of sugar.
“Sugar has many functions,” said Deborah Waters, senior business development manager, bakery, Kerry Ingredients. “In a sweet baked good, it controls batter viscosity, provides humectancy, lowers water activity, extends shelf life, provides a smooth, sweet profile and gives a softer texture to the crumb. In a yeast-raised product, sugar can impact fermentation or proofing, slow staling and increased sweetness, as well as mask astringency in higher fiber or whole wheat recipes.”
Bringing honey to the table
Consumers want better-for-you snacks and baked goods but not at the cost of good taste. Threading that needle in formulating bakery and snack products is the key to meeting these consumer demands.
“As health and wellness trends continue and a surge of new better-for-you snacks and baked goods hit the shelves, flavor is more important than ever,” said Hanna Santoro, senior scientist, baking development and applications, ADM. “Modifying solutions are customizable to specific requirements. Depending on the application and ingredients used, flavor modifying technology solutions can serve multiple functions.”
Allulose has been attracting considerable attention in the baking segment. This “rare sugar” was Generally Recognized as Safe in June 2012. In April 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration determined that allulose may be excluded from total and added sugars counts on labels and that the lower calorie content may be used for total calorie determination. That’s because allulose is not metabolized by the body. Its caloric value in humans is about 0.2 per gram as compared to 4 calories per gram of sugar.
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These numbers make allulose appealing for baked goods, especially those that are typically high in sugar content. Bakers also find allulose attractive because it has a sweetness curve that is like sucrose; however, it is only about 70% as sweet as sucrose. Because it tastes like sucrose, it typically does not require any flavor masking. Flavor modulators may enhance the sweetness profile, or allulose may be used with some real sugar or high-intensity sweeteners to achieve the full sweet taste of sucrose.
“Allulose is found naturally in wheat, figs, raisins and jackfruit,” Mr. Douglass said. “[It comes] in powder, crystal and liquid forms for use in baked goods and snacks.”