SWEETENERS IN ANIMAL NUTRITION I. ORIGIN AND TYPES

It wasn’t until 1879 that Constantin Fahlberg accidentally discovered benzoic sulfoxide by eating bread after working with tar… and not washing his hands. What would be considered the first synthetic sweetener, saccharin, had just been born.

With growing obesity problems, human nutrition seeks to provide the same hedonic sensation of sugar but with a much lower caloric intake. However, in animal nutrition sweeteners are used for their low relative price compared to sugar and their ability to improve the palatability of feeds. The sweetening power is calculated using sugar as a reference and in sweeteners it is much higher. There are two types of sweeteners:

SYNTHETIC SWEETENERS

Saccharin: its sweetness is between 300 and 500 times higher than sugar. It has great stability at high temperatures and low pH. However, at high concentrations it has a bitter or metallic aftertaste that is unpleasant especially for animals.

Neohesperidin dihydrochalcone (NHDC): to obtain it, it is necessary to process neohesperidin and that is why it is considered synthetic. Its power goes from 1,500 to 1,800 times that of sugar, at high concentrations it has a licorice aftertaste and is poorly soluble in water.

NATURAL SWEETENERS

Steviol glycosides: they are obtained from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana, commonly known as stevia. Its sweetness is between 200 and 300 that of sugar. Its price compared to its sweetening power is its main disadvantage.

Thaumatin: is the most powerful natural sweeter known, with a sweetness of about 2,500 times that of sugar. It is a protein that is extracted from katemfe, an African bush. Being a protein, it is not very resistant to extreme temperatures and pH, since it is denatured.

Only the most common sweeteners used in animal nutrition are mentioned in this list. Finally, one of the strategies most frequently used is the combination of different sweeteners. The idea is to find a synergy between them that will make it possible to exploit the virtues and minimize the disadvantages of each one, although these combinations require very meticulous R&D work.