The receptors in your mouth/nose (that tell your brain oh that’s sweet) get triggered by these molecules much stronger, causing a stronger response. They have an energetic value (i.e. if you set them on fire, they burn), but no nutritional value, as your body can’t break them down.
They have about the same calories as sugar by weight, but you use a much smaller quantity of them to sweeten food because they are much sweeter than sugar
The amount of sweetener needed is small enough that the calories round down to zero, (or are small enough that nutritional label rules allow 0 to be used)
This is also why dried Coke is sticky and dried diet Coke isn’t; there is a lot of sugar dissolved in one, while the other is almost entirely water
They have a shape that very easily binds to the sweetness receptors on our tongue. This means you need very little of the sweetener to achieve a high level of sweetness.
Some of the sweeteners also don’t get digested at all because of their chemical structure so they provide no calories at all. This can however cause digestive discomfort for some people.
Artificial sweeteners like aspartame are much sweeter than sugar, so only a tiny amount is needed to achieve the same sweet taste. Because they’re used in such small amounts, they don’t add significant calories to your food or drinks. Your body also processes them differently than regular sugar, so they don’t contribute the same energy (calories).
The sweet receptors on your tongue are simple and get triggered by the right shaped chemical. For example they like R shaped ones. Your digestive system can break these down into energy and give you calories to use.
Artificial sweeteners are Я shaped, close enough for your tongue but not compatible with your digestive system.
Your gut biome is full of much simpler critters who can eat them just fine though. This means you can develop a sugar addicts guts even when you just consume “fake” sugar.
Our body has evolved to make the nutrients that we need to survive taste good. When we eat sweet natural foods, the taste buds in your mouth sense the sugar and tell your brain this is sweet. Then in your stomach and gut, that sugar is broken down for energy by a different process.
Artificial sweeteners are chemicals we’ve developed that still cause your taste buds to say this is sweet, but can’t be broken down for energy after you eat it. They generally pass through you undigested, and so you don’t get any energy (calories) from them.
Their molecules have a shape that looks like real sugar. The shape is close enough to trick your tongue and brain but different enough that your gut can tell the difference. So your brain gets the sensation of eating sweets but it doesn’t break down in your gut and you just pee or poop it out.
There’s a difference between the experience of taste and your bodily digestion.
Junk food tastes incredible, but provides little real nutritional value, there’s a disconnect between the experience of eating and the result.
The same is true of artificial sweeteners. They are designed to activate the receptors in your tongue for sweetness. But your body cannot meaningfully make use of them in the same way as something like sugar.
So you get the experience of sweetness, and it passes through your body without being digested into caloric value in the way sugar would.
Aspartame is the same 4 calories per gram as sugar. The body digests it just fine. The difference is, aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. So you can use 1/200th as much and achieve the same sweetness. So if a glass of Coke has 100 calories of sugar, the same glass of Coke Zero will have about half a calorie worth, which is allowed to be rounded down to zero.
Taking an analogy here between fire(natural) and LED lights(artificial). You can have very bright sources of light using fire or LEDs, but the fire would be much hotter for a given brightness. Similarly both sugar and sweeteners can be at the sweetness level without containing the same calories.
Sweeteners are, for example, 1000x sweetener that sugar. That’s how the brain interprets it anyway. Like you need 1mg of sweetener for it to taste like 1g of sugar.
In terms of actual calorific value it’s the same as sugar. If you used 1g of sweetener and 1g of sugar it has the same calories.
But because it’s so much sweeter you only need a fraction of it.
They taste incredibly chemical. Aspartame, stevia and all these things leave an off taste I can always tell. When mixed with real sugar it’s not half bad (heh) but I prefer to eat less real sugar than replacing it with industrial chemicals
Your body has no way to break down and process these artificial sweeteners so they just pass through and out with the rest of your bodily waste. How can something impart calories to you if it’s not broken down and absorbed?
I feel like I see this or a similar question every other week but the short answer is they aren’t zero calories. The US allows food servings to be listed as 0 calories if they are less than 5 calories. So when using a sweetener like aspartame which is 200 times sweeter than sugar you can use 200 times less of it for the same sweetness. This is proven for ULTRA sweetened drinks like Baja Blast, the zero calories versions are often listed as having 5-15 calories due to how much of the alt sweetener they are required to use to match the full sugar version.
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The receptors in your mouth/nose (that tell your brain oh that’s sweet) get triggered by these molecules much stronger, causing a stronger response. They have an energetic value (i.e. if you set them on fire, they burn), but no nutritional value, as your body can’t break them down.
They have about the same calories as sugar by weight, but you use a much smaller quantity of them to sweeten food because they are much sweeter than sugar
The amount of sweetener needed is small enough that the calories round down to zero, (or are small enough that nutritional label rules allow 0 to be used)
This is also why dried Coke is sticky and dried diet Coke isn’t; there is a lot of sugar dissolved in one, while the other is almost entirely water
They have a shape that very easily binds to the sweetness receptors on our tongue. This means you need very little of the sweetener to achieve a high level of sweetness.
Some of the sweeteners also don’t get digested at all because of their chemical structure so they provide no calories at all. This can however cause digestive discomfort for some people.
Artificial sweeteners like aspartame are much sweeter than sugar, so only a tiny amount is needed to achieve the same sweet taste. Because they’re used in such small amounts, they don’t add significant calories to your food or drinks. Your body also processes them differently than regular sugar, so they don’t contribute the same energy (calories).
The sweet receptors on your tongue are simple and get triggered by the right shaped chemical. For example they like R shaped ones. Your digestive system can break these down into energy and give you calories to use.
Artificial sweeteners are Я shaped, close enough for your tongue but not compatible with your digestive system.
Your gut biome is full of much simpler critters who can eat them just fine though. This means you can develop a sugar addicts guts even when you just consume “fake” sugar.
Our body has evolved to make the nutrients that we need to survive taste good. When we eat sweet natural foods, the taste buds in your mouth sense the sugar and tell your brain this is sweet. Then in your stomach and gut, that sugar is broken down for energy by a different process.
Artificial sweeteners are chemicals we’ve developed that still cause your taste buds to say this is sweet, but can’t be broken down for energy after you eat it. They generally pass through you undigested, and so you don’t get any energy (calories) from them.
Their molecules have a shape that looks like real sugar. The shape is close enough to trick your tongue and brain but different enough that your gut can tell the difference. So your brain gets the sensation of eating sweets but it doesn’t break down in your gut and you just pee or poop it out.
There’s a difference between the experience of taste and your bodily digestion.
Junk food tastes incredible, but provides little real nutritional value, there’s a disconnect between the experience of eating and the result.
The same is true of artificial sweeteners. They are designed to activate the receptors in your tongue for sweetness. But your body cannot meaningfully make use of them in the same way as something like sugar.
So you get the experience of sweetness, and it passes through your body without being digested into caloric value in the way sugar would.
Aspartame is the same 4 calories per gram as sugar. The body digests it just fine. The difference is, aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. So you can use 1/200th as much and achieve the same sweetness. So if a glass of Coke has 100 calories of sugar, the same glass of Coke Zero will have about half a calorie worth, which is allowed to be rounded down to zero.
Taking an analogy here between fire(natural) and LED lights(artificial). You can have very bright sources of light using fire or LEDs, but the fire would be much hotter for a given brightness. Similarly both sugar and sweeteners can be at the sweetness level without containing the same calories.
Sweeteners are, for example, 1000x sweetener that sugar. That’s how the brain interprets it anyway. Like you need 1mg of sweetener for it to taste like 1g of sugar.
In terms of actual calorific value it’s the same as sugar. If you used 1g of sweetener and 1g of sugar it has the same calories.
But because it’s so much sweeter you only need a fraction of it.
They taste incredibly chemical. Aspartame, stevia and all these things leave an off taste I can always tell. When mixed with real sugar it’s not half bad (heh) but I prefer to eat less real sugar than replacing it with industrial chemicals
The taste is caused by the shape of the molecule (activating sensors on the tongue that respond to molecules of a certain shape).
The calories are caused by how the body processes the molecule and turns it into energy.
If you have something that’s the correct shape but not able to be broken down into energy, it will taste sweet with no calories.
They do have calories. But are in a form that your body can’t metabolize. So you cannot get any nutritional value from them.
They do have calories but you need the tiniest fraction of the amount of sugar so they round down to 0
Your body has no way to break down and process these artificial sweeteners so they just pass through and out with the rest of your bodily waste. How can something impart calories to you if it’s not broken down and absorbed?
I feel like I see this or a similar question every other week but the short answer is they aren’t zero calories. The US allows food servings to be listed as 0 calories if they are less than 5 calories. So when using a sweetener like aspartame which is 200 times sweeter than sugar you can use 200 times less of it for the same sweetness. This is proven for ULTRA sweetened drinks like Baja Blast, the zero calories versions are often listed as having 5-15 calories due to how much of the alt sweetener they are required to use to match the full sugar version.