Sweet protein promises to be the next high ground for sugar substitutes

With a taste closer to sucrose and its natural zero-calorie properties, erythritol, allulose and various functional sugars have been highly respected in the industry in recent years

Traditional low-calorie and high-intensity sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, and steviol glycosides can provide sufficient "sweetness", but they all exhibit unpleasant odors such as metallic taste and post-bitterness to varying degrees.

New high-intensity natural sweetener - sweet protein

As early as 1968, researchers isolated a protein from the miracle fruit that can turn sourness into sweetness--kiwifruit protein

Since then, scientists have discovered a variety of sweet proteins, which can be roughly divided into three categories

Compared with traditional sugar substitutes, sweetened proteins have many unique advantages

However, due to the high cost and poor stability of pure plant extraction of sweet protein, it has not been effectively developed for a long time, and only thomastin is widely used in food

The Most Promising Sweet Protein - Brazil Sweet Protein

Among the many sweet proteins, brazil is considered the most promising because it tastes like sugar, has no off-flavor, and retains its structure at different temperature ranges and at different pH levels

Natur Research Ingredients, a US company, launched the world's first commercial brazil protein product in 2008

Not long ago, sweetener supplier Sweegen Corporation of the United States and partners launched brazilian sweetener, which will be available in early 2022

Commercially successful sweet protein - sommatin

Soma sweet is isolated from a perennial shrub of the Bamboo family in the tropical rainforest of West Africa

Sweet soma is great to add to drinks

At present, Sommatide has been approved for use in the fields of food, medicine and cosmetics in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and other countries and regions

Sweet protein under development - kiwi

Kiwi protein is the first sweet protein to be discovered.

Joywell Foods, an American food company, uses the latest bio-fermentation technology to achieve low-cost commercial production of kiwi protein

　　Israeli biotech company Amai Proteins used cloud computing-based protein design (AI-CPD) to recode the amino acid sequence of kiwi protein, making it suitable for the mass food market in terms of taste, yield, and stability

　　Ocean Spray, an American agricultural cooperative, and Amai Proteins, an Israeli biotechnology company, recently developed a low-sugar cranberry juice that uses kiwi protein produced by Amai Proteins to replace sugar, which can reduce sugar by at least 40%

　　(Kaya)

         "China Food News" (November 15, 2021 06 edition)

 (Editor-in-charge: Yang Xiaojing)