Physicochemical properties of turanose and its potential applications as a sucrose substitute

Abstract

Among the structural isomers of sucrose, turanosehas been considered as one of good candidates asnovel sweetener due to its mild taste, low calorie, and anticariogenicity. Here, various physicochemical properties ofturanose, such as solubility, temperature and pH stabilities,viscosity, non-enzymatic browning reaction, and dynamicvapor sorption, were investigated by comparing them tothose of other commercial sugars. Turanose did not significantlyhydrolyze through the simulated digestion tractoverall but in the artificial small intestinal environmentspecifically, turanose degraded by only 18% when sucrosewas hydrolyzed by 36% after 4 h. In addition, physicochemicalproperties of turanose confirmed that it had apotential to replace sucrose due to similar or better productqualities as a food ingredient than other types of sugarswith similar chemical structure. Thus, our study suggeststhat turanose can be applied as a functional sweetener orbulking agent in food processing.