Title: Alternative Sweeteners

486 Fry and Hoek
real applications than tests conducted with water. Figure 2 indicates a relative
sweetness figure for Twinsweet of about 350 times as sweet as sucrose in water
and 400 times as sweet in pH 3.2 citrate at 4% sucrose equivalence. The higher
relative sweetness in the citrate buffer is consistent with observations of the behavior
of aspartame, which also tastes sweeter in acid solution than in water.
Across the full range of concentration, the relative sweetness of Twinsweet
is 11% higher than could be obtained from the same weight of an equimolar
mixture of aspartame with acesulfame-K. This is because the sweetenersweetener
salt contains only active sweeteners and no potassium. The latter accounts
for 19.4% of acesulfame-K by weight but contributes no sweetness. In a
similar vein, Twinsweet has a very low moisture content, whereas the aspartame
component of a physical blend can contain up to 4.5% moisture (strictly ‘‘loss
on drying’’) while remaining within international specification limits. The overall
saving on nonsweet components, namely potassium and moisture, means that the
aspartame-acesulfame salt is a more effective sweetener on a weight-for-weight
Figure 3 Synergy in a blend of aspartame (APM) with acesulfame-K (AceK) as a function
of blend ratio, also showing the fixed equimolar ratio of aspartame-acesulfame (Twinsweet).
Solvent pH 3.2 citrate buffer, blend concentration 400 ppm at all ratios,
aspartame-acesulfame concentration 360 ppm. (From Ref. 6.)