Spoon for spoon, xylitol is about as sweet as sugar. How many times sweeter than sugar is aspartame?
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200
Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar, so a packet holds almost nothing. Sugar alcohols like xylitol and sorbitol are only 25% to 100% as sweet, so they get used by the spoonful. In 2023 the WHO called aspartame possibly carcinogenic on limited evidence but left its safe daily limit unchanged. Sugar alcohols raise no cancer question, just a laxative one: the FDA requires a warning on food that could deliver 50 grams of sorbitol a day.
Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar. Xylitol is about as sweet as sugar, spoon for spoon.
Source: FDA (Aspartame and Other Sweeteners in Food); WHO/IARC and JECFA, Jul 2023 · checked Feb 2025