Four groups of compounds are used to sweeten foods: (1) the sugars, of which the commonest is sucrose (2) bulk sweeteners, including sugar alcohols (3) synthetic non¬ nutritive sweeteners (intense sweeteners), which are many times sweeter than sucrose (4) various other chemicals such as glycerol and glycine (70% as sweet as sucrose), and certain peptides.
A sweet-tasting substance, either nutritive, such as sugars, or non-nutritive, such as saccharin.