SWALLOW THE SCIENCE

FRUITS OF THE INTERNET

When I graduated university, my parents gave me a very special gift: a set of the renowned Encyclopedia Britannica! It had the answer to virtually every question I came across and was fun to just browse through. But the last time I picked up one of those heavy volumes was about twenty years ago. By then, the Internet and the tsunami of information it brought to our fingertips had appeared on the scene.

Every day I witness both the positive and negative power the web can unleash. I'm continuously flooded with questions that can be traced back to some item seen on the web. You don't even have to watch television anymore because significant clips, or entire programs, are just a few keystrokes away. A glance at just a few of the hundred or so questions that came my way during a single week affords insight into what is on the public mind. So let's have a go.

I always know what Dr. Mehmet Oz has been up to because my email inbox boils over with questions about his latest antics. Judging by the number of questions I got about monk fruit, it was clear that Oz had been trying to sweeten people's lives with this alternative to artificial sweeteners. We love sweets, but we worry, justifiably, about consuming too much sugar, and less justifiably, about its artificial replacements. The market is ripe for products that can be promoted as "natural no-calorie sweeteners." Monk fruit extracts happen to fit the bill.

Legend has it that the fruit, commonly known by its Chinese name, "luo han guo," was first cultivated by Buddhist monks back in the thirteenth century for its supposed fever-reducing and cough-relieving properties. Folklore also has monk fruit extending life, with claims that the counties in China where the fruit is grown for commercial purposes have an unusual number of centenarians. This has never been confirmed; neither do we know whether the fruit is routinely consumed by the population there.

Various preparations of the fruit are sold in China with claims of moistening the lungs, eliminating phlegm, stopping cough, relieving sunstroke and promoting bowel movements. While the efficacy of monk fruit as a medicine is questionable, the sweetness of its juice is not. This, however, did not arouse scientists' curiosity until the 1970s, when expanding waistlines led to expanding markets for non-caloric sweeteners. Analysis revealed that monk fruit contained five closely related compounds called mogrosides that are some 250 to 400 times sweeter than sugar. These can be extracted from the juice and processed into a powder that can be used as a sweetening agent. Because of the high degree of sweetness, very little of the monk fruit extract is required, so it can be classified as non-caloric. Although there have been no extensive safety studies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has classified monk fruit preparations as "generally recognized as safe," or "GRAS."

McNeil Nutritionals has now introduced monk fruit extract as a "no-calorie sweetener" under the name Nectresse. In order to provide volume and appropriate texture, the extract is blended with a small amount of erythritol (a sugar alcohol), sugar and molasses. These contribute fewer than five calories per serving, which is the limit for a product to be labeled as "containing no calories." I'd have no problem with trying this sweetener, and I'm sure many people who worry about artificial sweeteners will p