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A new sweetener is hitting the food and beverage markets. Brazzein is a sweet protein that will be commercially marketed under the name Cweet. It is an intense sweetener that is found in a West African fruit. It comes from the smoked and dried berries of the plant Pentadiplandra brazzein. It comes from a climbing vine that can be found in Cabon, Zaire, and Cameroon. Brazzein is the smallest known sweet tasting protein. It has been used for many thousands of years in its raw form.
The reason we haven’t seen Cweet on the market until now is that it is an expensive endeavor to naturally extract Brazzein. The price of production of Brazzein was a motivating force for the manufacturers of Cweet to create a cheap and quick way to make the sweetener. Within the U.S. it is likely that we will see Cweet being widely manufactured and distributed in the food and beverage industries. The researchers responsible for making Cweet available for mass production think it will become a big hit for diet soft drinks and tabletop sweetener users. There is interest from the largest food and beverage companies, who are trialing Cweet to see how consumers respond. They will be pairing Cweet with other artificial sweeteners until it is determined how Cweet will be able to do on its own.
Cweet has an added appeal to the food and beverage industry because it works well with citric acid and phosphate beverages. This means that Cweet can be added in combination to other artificial sweeteners that may pose potential health issues. It is supposed to be widely available in the markets by 2010; however you will begin to see it within beverages and particular foods starting in 2009.
Cweet is thought to offer many benefits for the sweetner market. Cweet tastes like cane sugar but has no calories. It is 2000 times sweeter than sucrose. It is a heat stable sweetener so cooking with it will offer no problems. Since Cweet is derived from a protein, it is considered to be safe for diabetics to use,because it produces no increase in blood sugar. It produces a low glycemic index value, which will be an attractive feature for those who watch their blood sugar levels. Its sweetness is not a mouth cooling and there is no lingering flavor.
Natur Research Ingredients has obtained the exclusive rights to be the only company involved in manufacturing and distribution of Cweet. The FDA has claimed that Cweet is generally recognized as safe. Since it is a sweetener there are no federal regulations that are used to test the safety of these products. Most of these products that are generally recognized as safe have some time on the shelves before people start seeing adverse reactions to them. We really cant tell how safe these types of sweetner products may be until they have been able to be on the market for some time and have had adequate research completed around their health effects.
It is likely that you will be able to buy Cweet at any grocery store. There is a possibility that health food stores may be able to get the pure form of Brazzein. However at this time there appears to be no information regarding where the pure extracted form of Brazzein will be available within the U.S.
The artificial sweetener industry is a money maker within our country, we have some form of sugar added to most of the products that we buy. Its hard to know how heavy our own personal dependence is on sweet tasting foods. A good way to tell how sugar dependent your tastebuds have become is to remove all forms of sugar from your diet. Doing an elimination diet where you remove soft drinks, processed foods, and sweetners gives your taste buds a break . After you have completed this diet and start by eating fruits and vegetables, you will be able to see how sweet these whole foods really are, something you may not have been able to notice before. |
