Sugarless sweetness: perceptual strategies to increase sweetness in sugar-reduced food products

Summary

Reducing sugar intake may help in maintaining a healthy body weight and reduce the risks of being overweight. To achieve this goal, reformulation of foods is considered a key option. One big challenge is maintaining end-product characteristics, such as taste, in reformulated products. Experts at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research have performed some studies on the sweetness of sugar-reduced food products. They applied psychological principles and found that sugar distribution and packaging characteristics can increase sweet taste intensity.