INTERNATIONAL
New Sweeteners Gain Ground in Europe Three products—aspartame, acesulfame-K, thaumatin— soon may be cleared for use in U.K., are getting close look from other countries Europeans, like Americans, have lit tle choice when it comes to artificial sweeteners. Saccharin, of course, is available. But cyclamates, although used in some countries, are banned in the U.K. Adoption of G. D. Searle & Co/s aspartame still is somewhat limited in Europe. The situation is expected to change before long. The U.K. is moving toward legalizing three products— aspartame; acesulfame-K, made by West Germany's Hoechst; and thau matin, a novel protein under devel opment by Tate & Lyle, a leading U.K. sugar refiner. Other West Eu ropean countries also are taking a close look at them. These compounds, like saccharin and the cyclamates, belong to a class known as intense sweeteners with a degree of sweetness many times greater than sucrose. They will go mainly into products for calorieconscious consumers—soft drinks, ice creams, desserts, and the like. Weight-watchers will add them to their coffee or tea. And they will find their way into medicines, mouth-
+
O
Ο
II
II
H3N— CH—C— NH—CH—C—OCH3 CH2 COOH
CH2 ^A.
Aspartame
washes, toothpastes, chewing gum, breakfast cereals, and similar prod ucts. The U.K/s move to allow use of the newer sweeteners is based on the first comprehensive review there of a wide variety of sweetening agents, both the intense and the so-called bulk sweeteners. This was under taken by the Food Additives & Con taminants Committee (FACC), an on-going independent body of ex perts that advises British government ministers on matters relating to food. A key element of the review was a detailed evaluation of the safetyin-use of the sweeteners by the U.K. Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products, and the Environment. FACC's recommen dations, embodied in a report pub lished last year, form the basis of regulatory proposals. The British Parliament will act on these, proba bly about mid-year, when they will become law. Clearance for use in the U.K. of aspartame, acesulfame-K, and thau matin will be welcomed by their de velopers. Aspartame, discovered in 1965, is furthest along in terms of global acceptance. In the past few years it has been approved as a food additive in Canada, South Africa, and Switzerland. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration gave its approval for its use in 1981. It has been cleared as a tabletop sweetener in Belgium, France, West Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and eight other countries including Canada and the U.S. Produced and marketed by Searle Food Resources Inc., in Skokie, 111. (a subsidiary of G. D. Searle), aspartame is a diamide formed from commonly occurring amino acids, L-aspartic acid, and the methyl ester of L-phe-
nylalanine. A 4% solution in water is between 180 and 200 times sweeter than a comparable sucrose solution. More significant, its taste is almost identical with that of sugar, lacking saccharin's bitter aftertaste. Acesulfame was an accidental discovery, as were, indeed, all the other sweeteners. It emerged in 1967 from studies at Hoechst in Frankfurt on novel ring compounds. It was the first instance of a 1,2,3-oxathiazine ring system, a six-member heterocy clic in which the oxygen, sulfur, and nitrogen atoms are adjacent to one another. A 4% solution of the potas-
Our broad product line includes stearic, palmitic, oleic, isostearic, sebacic, hydrogenated tallow acids and tall oil tatty acids. For more information, contact
Chemical Products Division Union Camp Corporation 1600 Valley Road, Wayne, New Jersey 07470 Telephone: (201)628-2330
January 24, 1983 C&EN
29
International sium salt, acesulfame-K, is about 130 times sweeter than that of sucrose. Like aspartame, it has come through pharmacological and toxicological tests with a clean slate. Unlike aspartame, which is metabolized, acesulfame-K is excreted unchanged. Hoechst points to a number of advantages of acesulfame-K. It has an extremely long storage life both as a solid and in solution. "Even in strongly acid soft drinks, reduction in the acesulfame-K content is so insignificant that it is only detectable after several months at the earliest," the company claims. Important, too, is that it withstands high temperatures. Consequently, the sweetness it imparts to products doesn't "go off" noticeably. Acesulfame-K has passed the first stage of acceptance qualification in West Germany. Hoechst hopes that it will get permission to launch a controlled test marketing campaign there before long. And final clearance may be granted in the U.S. within 12 months or so.
Call for Papers
ChL
K+
2
Acesulfame-K
Commercialization of Tate & Lyle's Talin, its tradename for thaumatin, already has begun in Japan. And in the U.S., Talin is expected to have restricted clearance before long as a flavor adjunct. The protein, consisting of 207 amino acid residues and with a molecular weight of about 22,000, occurs naturally in the ripe fruit of Thaumatococcus àaniellxi, a tropical plant native to West Africa. It comes in two forms, thaumatin I and II, differing only slightly in their amino acid sequence. Both incorporate eight disulfide bridges, which confer considerable stability to the molecule. Talin has a remarkable degree of sweetness, up to 5000 times that of a comparable 4% sucrose solution in
Call for Papers
| C
water. Solutions in a variety of solvents are stable over a wide pH and temperature range. It isn't just sweetness alone that Talin is noted for. It also enhances and extends flavor and aroma, typically those associated with peppermint, coffee, and the like. "Talin protein is not volatile itself, but seems to increase the abundance of the flavor volatiles perceived in the nose," notes John D. Higginbotham of Tate & Lyle's sweetener development group in Reading outside London. "This is in marked contrast to other common proteins, which usually bind flavors and reduce their impact." It is this quality of flavor enhancement, as much as sweetness, that has promoted use of Talin proteins in Japan since 1979. It now goes into a wide variety of food items there such as chewing gum, candies, dairy products, desserts, soups, pickles, sausages, dried squid, and many more. Dermot O'Sullivan, London
Call for Papers
F I F T H
Call for Papers
B I E N N I A L
Mar Symposium
