Diligent readers of food and beverage labels may have noticed an increasingly common ingredient in some health and energy drinks: crystalline fructose.
To some, the ingredient is a reassuring sign that the product hasn't been sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that's been falling out of consumer favor over concerns of a disputed link to obesity and diabetes. Others, however, may have found themselves wondering what, exactly, is crystalline fructose? And is it really any different from high fructose corn syrup?
"Technically, yes, but physiologically, no," says Roger Clemens, a professor at the USC School of Pharmacy whose research has focused on functional foods, food processing and nutrition. The two ingredients are chemically distinct, Clemens says, but their nutritional ramifications vary only slightly.
High fructose corn syrup and crystalline fructose are made from the same starting material: corn. In the U.S., this is an abundant and cheap source of fructose, the plant-sugar responsible for making many fruits so naturally sweet.
But though high fructose corn syrup often contains about 55% fructose (the rest is glucose), crystalline fructose is the result of several extra processing steps which yield a product that is close to 100% fructose. (According to federal standards, crystalline fructose is, by definition, at least 98% fructose; the remaining fraction is water and minerals.)
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Calorie cutter
From a food-manufacturing perspective, a nearly pure-fructose sweetener is advantageous because it's up to 20% sweeter than sucrose, or table sugar, says Craig Ruffolo, vice president of McKeany-Flavell Co., a sweetener industry analysis firm in Emeryville, Calif. That means manufacturers can achieve a high level of sweetness without adding as much volume to a product.
That extra sweetness also means crystalline fructose adds fewer calories to a sweetened food or drink compared with table sugar or high fructose corn syrup (it's 5% sweeter than the syrup). This is why it's often included in drinks marketed to more health-conscious consumers.
The difference in calories is typically small -- a drink sweetened with crystalline fructose in place of high fructose corn syrup, for instance, would have about 5% fewer calories, says Ihab Bishay, a Chicago-based independent food science consultant to the sweetener industry. "But if you're concentrating on your calories, it's a help," he says.
