Title: Alternative Sweeteners

470 Bakal
Figure 4 Aspartame (APM) stability in carbonated cola beverages stored at 30°C.
(From Ref. 17.)
in bottled and canned drinks. However, in other markets, products containing
two or more intense sweeteners were introduced. For example, a major soft
drink manufacturer markets products that contain saccharin, aspartame, and
acesulfame-K.
Experiments conducted in our laboratory indicate that the addition of very
small amounts of aspartame, in accordance with the specifications of the Lavia
and Hill patent (15) improve the acceptance of saccharin-sweetened soft drinks.
The cola beverages evaluated were sweetened with 33 mg saccharin per 100 ml.
The addition of 0.7 mg aspartame to 100 ml of the saccharin-sweetened beverage
(0.0007% concentration) resulted in a significant consumer preference for the
beverage. It is clear that the use of aspartame at this concentration falls below
the sweetness threshold of aspartame, which, according to Beck, is in the range
of 0.007–0.001% (4).
The expiration of the U.S. patent on aspartame and the approval of
acesulfame-K for use in soft drinks resulted in marketing changes and renewed
interest in using a combination of sweeteners. The most important of these devel-