Which sugar substitute is best for what you are making

Start with a simple question: what exactly does sugar need to do in your dish — sweeten, add bulk, thicken or brown? Drinks and most baked goods only need sweetness, and that’s where concentrated 1:5 and 1:10 blends work best. Jam also needs body, and caramel needs to melt. Every job has its own best helper. Let’s figure it out together, so sweetness is a joy again, not a compromise.

Sugar substitutes compared: sweetness, calories, GI and baking

Erythritol, stevia, sucralose and monk fruit give zero calories and zero effect on blood glucose and insulin, and they are the ones we recommend to people who monitor their blood sugar. Only real sugars and allulose caramelize. Xylitol, maltitol, isomalt and sorbitol are not zero: they provide 2.4 kcal/g, and maltitol has a noticeable effect on glucose.

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GI is the glycemic index (glucose = 100); II is the insulin index. *Non-nutritive sweeteners contain practically no carbohydrates, so they don’t raise glucose or insulin. **No EU or Ukrainian energy factor exists for allulose: 0.2 is the FSANZ estimate, 0.4 is the FDA figure. ***Allulose is a carbohydrate (a “rare sugar”), but the body gets almost no energy from it: in a study, 7.5 g of allulose taken on its own did not change glucose or insulin levels. No officially measured GI or II values exist for it yet. “—” means not applicable or no reliable data.

What does 1:5 or 1:10 mean on a sweetener?

The ratios 1:5 and 1:10 show sweetening power, not ingredients: 1 g of the product sweetens like 5 g or 10 g of sugar. In practice, one teaspoon of sugar equals ≈1 g of SOLOSVIT Yellow 1:5 or ≈0.5 g of SOLOSVIT Orange 1:10.

Erythritol is ≈30% less sweet than sugar, so you use more of it; with the blends you use 5 or 10 times less.

Erythritol and stevia blends: a sugar substitute without aftertaste

A blend removes the drawbacks of each ingredient. Erythritol gives bulk and a sugar-like texture, but it is 20–40% less sweet than sugar and cools the tongue. Stevia and sucralose are hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, so pure extract for a cup of tea is a few grains you can’t measure. On top of that, stevia tastes bitter at high concentrations: its glycosides activate the bitter taste receptors TAS2R4 and TAS2R14. But in a well-balanced blend, all that’s left is the taste of sweetness, just like sugar.

Why pure erythritol isn’t the answer for replacing sugar completely. To replace sugar completely, you need a lot of erythritol. Yet about 50 g a day is already above the acceptable daily intake that EFSA set for erythritol precisely because of its laxative effect (35 g for a person weighing 70 kg). Eaten in one go, that amount gives some people rumbling, bloating or loose stools. And in sweetness it’s only ≈35 g of sugar, about 7 teaspoons. That’s not enough for a cake, pancakes or tea sweetened the way you like: too little sweetness, a real risk of discomfort, and people go back to sugar. In a blend, erythritol becomes a convenient carrier for high-intensity extracts: 1 g of SOLOSVIT Yellow sweetens like 5 g of sugar, so you never get near those doses. That’s also why a jar lasts so long: a 200 g jar of Orange matches the sweetness of ≈2 kg of sugar.

Why one blend tastes bitter and another doesn’t. Almost everyone who has tried sweeteners has a “stevia tastes bitter” story. Bitterness depends on the dose, on the type of glycoside (stevioside is more bitter than rebaudioside A or M) and on how the extract is purified, and every extract manufacturer has its own technology. Labels usually don’t list the glycoside type, so choosing the “right” stevia by its package is almost impossible, and many erythritol-and-stevia blends on store shelves taste bitter.

That’s why, for SOLOSVIT sweeteners, we use stevia extract with an additional purification step, and it has no bitterness, so even stevioside, which is more bitter on its own, has no bitterness after this purification. In SOLOSVIT Yellow and Orange, sucralose adds fullness to the sweet taste, since its taste profile is the closest to sugar. And the measuring scoop in the jar helps you get the sweetness right. Our clients put it simply: finding a sugar substitute with no aftertaste that works for both baking and jam is “quite a quest.”

Sweetener profiles: erythritol, stevia, sucralose, allulose and more

Below is a short guide to each sweetener: what it is, where it performs well, where it falls short and what its regulatory status is around the world. Read the profiles side by side to see why no single sweetener does every job. Click a name to expand it.

Hidden sugars: what to avoid on the ingredient list

“Sugar-free” on the package doesn’t mean “no effect on blood sugar.” Manufacturers often replace sugar with ingredients that add calories and raise glucose but sound safer. When you read the ingredient list, look for two kinds of names: sugar under another name and “non-zero” substitutes. If your goal is blood sugar control or weight loss, they work against you.

Our rule is simple: choose sweeteners with zero calories and a zero glycemic and insulin index. SOLOSVIT jars, erythritol, liquid sweetener and powdered sweetener contain no maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol or fructose. See the full range in the SOLOSVIT sweetener catalog.

Best sugar substitute for diabetics

Best sugar substitute for baking, jam and caramel

For most baking, use SOLOSVIT Orange or Yellow: a blend of erythritol, stevia and sucralose that sweetens like sugar and stays stable when heated. For jam, use the same Orange and pectin (sold in stores as a jam-making aid) or allulose for body. For caramel and decorations, use isomalt; for a golden crust, allulose. In baking, sugar does more than add taste, so choose your helper by its function.

• Pies, cottage cheese pancakes, muffins: SOLOSVIT Orange 1:10 or Yellow 1:5. If you want to skip sucralose, choose the green or blue jar.
• Sponge cake, meringue, glaze, where sugar holds the structure: get part of the bulk from erythritol. The crust will be paler, because erythritol does not take part in the browning reaction.
• Jam, preserves, canning: SOLOSVIT Orange. It doesn’t thicken, so add pectin that gels without sugar, or allulose. Store sugar-free jam in the fridge or can it strictly following the method: in a classic recipe, sugar also acts as a preservative.
• Golden crust, caramel: allulose, which browns like sugar.
• Hard candy, clear decorations: isomalt.
• Smooth cream without “crunch”: erythritol dissolves less readily than sugar and recrystallizes as it cools. For no-cook creams, use powdered sweetener or a 1:5 blend.

Are sugar substitutes bad for you? What 2023–2026 research shows

Regulators in the EU and the US consider authorized sweeteners safe within the acceptable daily intake. The widely reported studies of 2023–2024 found associations and laboratory effects, but they did not prove that sweeteners cause harm, and newer 2026 evidence (EFSA’s re-evaluation of sucralose and a randomized erythritol study, still a preprint) did not confirm some of the concerns. Let’s look at the three topics we’re asked about most often.

Erythritol and heart health

In 2023, a study in Nature Medicine found that cardiology patients with the highest blood levels of erythritol had cardiovascular events more often. But the study measured erythritol in the blood, not how much of it people ate, and the body makes erythritol from glucose itself, with levels rising in diabetes and obesity.

In 2024, the same group showed that a single 30 g dose of erythritol temporarily increased platelet clumping in 10 healthy volunteers; the study was small and did not measure heart events. And in September 2026, researchers from Basel and Bern (Switzerland) published a randomized crossover study in which 50 g of erythritol did not increase platelet clumping in 14 healthy people compared with water. It is a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, and it does not prove long-term safety, but while the alarming headlines reached everyone, results like these get far less attention. EFSA and the FDA concluded that a causal link has not been shown.

The practical takeaway: stay within the acceptable daily intake, which is 35 g of erythritol a day for a person weighing 70 kg; people at high cardiovascular risk should discuss sweeteners with their doctor.

Sucralose and DNA

A 2023 test-tube study found genotoxicity in a sucralose impurity, sucralose-6-acetate. In 2026, EFSA reviewed these data and found no genotoxic risk for sucralose or its impurities.

The WHO position (2023)

The WHO conditionally recommends against using sweeteners for weight control: in its assessment, they do not help reduce body fat in the long term. This recommendation does not apply to people with diabetes or to polyols, including erythritol. The WHO’s main advice is to cut free sugars to 10% of calories, ideally to 5% (≈25 g, about 6 teaspoons a day). At SOLOSVIT, this is exactly where we see the role of zero-calorie sweeteners: removing free sugar without giving up sweet taste.

How much sweetener per day is safe?

There is no limit related to blood sugar: non-nutritive sweeteners don’t raise glucose. The limit is the acceptable daily intake (ADI), which is set with a large safety margin, and for erythritol it reflects digestive comfort. For a person weighing 70 kg, that is 35 g of erythritol, 280 mg of stevia (as steviol equivalents) or 1,050 mg of sucralose a day. With 1:5 and 1:10 blends, you’ll practically never reach these limits.

For a 60 kg person: erythritol 30 g, stevia 240 mg, sucralose 900 mg. Our calculation, based on EFSA values.

With 1:5 blends, the limit is far away: 35 g of erythritol equals ≈35 cups of coffee sweetened with SOLOSVIT Yellow. With pure erythritol, the limit is closer: ≈7 g per cup, or ≈5 cups, and a slice of dessert made with pure erythritol can contain 20–30 g. That’s why we recommend concentrated blends for everyday use.

How to read a sweetener label (EU and Ukraine)

On a sweetener label, check three things: the sugar claim, the polyol warning and the full ingredient list. A “sugar-free” claim has a legal limit, polyols trigger a laxative warning, and only the ingredient list shows whether the product also contains caloric ingredients such as maltitol or syrups. EU rules are listed first; Ukraine applies equivalent rules.

• “Sugar-free” means no more than 0.5 g of sugars per 100 g or 100 ml (EU nutrition-claims rules, Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006, Annex).
• “No added sugars” means no sugars were added; if sugars occur naturally, the label must also say “contains naturally occurring sugars.”
• Polyol warning: foods with more than 10% added polyols must state “excessive consumption may produce laxative effects” (Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex III).
• Calories: polyols count as 2.4 kcal/g, erythritol as 0 kcal/g.
• “Sugar-free” ≠ “calorie-free”: maltitol, inulin and syrups provide calories too, and sugar syrups as many as sugar itself.

Ukraine applies equivalent rules to these claims and to the polyol warning. In addition, MOH Order No. 45/2024 requires table-top sweeteners with polyols (including erythritol) to carry the laxative-effect warning whatever their polyol share.

How to choose a SOLOSVIT sweetener

The color of a SOLOSVIT jar tells you two things: how sweet it is and whether it contains sucralose. The yellow and orange jars are a blend of erythritol, stevia and sucralose, our pick for coffee, baking and jam. The green and blue jars are sucralose-free, for those who prefer stevia only. All of them have zero calories and a zero glycemic and insulin index.

None of the sweeteners in this table contains maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol or fructose.

Orange jar 1:10For baking and jam Yellow jar 1:5For coffee, tea and desserts Erythritol 500 gBulk for meringue and glaze

Why we created SOLOSVIT

We created SOLOSVIT because the best solution simply didn’t exist. What was on the shelves tasted bitter, left a cooling aftertaste or hid maltitol and fructose inside, and made you choose between taste and health. And concentrated sweeteners, whose safety is well studied, were inconvenient to use in everyday life.

For 10 years we have been studying how sweeteners affect people: on ourselves, on our families and through thousands of conversations with our clients. Our recipes aren’t “buy, mix, sell.” They are our own technology, additionally purified stevia extract and the expertise of founders who live and breathe this topic. We think not only about how it tastes today, but about how sweetness will affect you years from now.

We have a big goal: to see as few people as possible in Ukraine suffering from the effects of too much sugar, such as excess weight, type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. Our part in this is to give you sweetness without sugar. Every SOLOSVIT jar — yellow, orange, green or blue — means zero calories, a practically zero glycemic and insulin index, and a sugar-like taste with no bitterness. No maltitol, no hidden sugar, no compromises.

We’re on your side, and we want you to be able to give up sugar without giving up sweetness. Try SOLOSVIT Orange in your favorite recipe, and maybe you’ll say it too: “Wow, you mean I could have done this all along?”

Frequently asked questions