Different sweeteners in passion fruit juice: Ideal and equivalent sweetness

- The ideal concentration of sucrose in passion fruit juice was 9.4 g/100 g.
- The order of intensity of sweeteners in passion fruit juice was neotame, followed by sucralose, cyclamate/saccharin blend 2:1 aspartame and stevia.
- Aspartame and sucralose as the best substitutes for sucrose.

The aim of this study was to determine the ideal equivalence of sweetness (equi-sweetness) and acceptance of passion fruit juice sweetened with sucrose and different sweeteners. The ideal sweetness of the samples sweetened with sucrose at 5.0, 7.5, 10.0, 12.5, and 15.0 g/100 g, were analyzed using an acceptance test with a just-about-right (JAR) scale and 60 consumers of tropical fruits juices. The magnitude estimation method was used to determine the equi-sweetness of the six different sweeteners. Six samples containing different sweeteners were prepared as follows: sucrose, aspartame, cyclamate/saccharin blend 2:1, stevia, sucralose and neotame. All samples were prepared to be equi-sweet, and the overall liking was determined using a 9-cm linear hedonic scale. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), Tukey's test and Internal Preference Mapping multivariate statistical analysis were applied using SAS software. The ideal sweetness analysis revealed that 9.4 g/100 g was the ideal sucrose concentration. The relative sweetness analysis showed that neotame presented the highest sweetening power, being 6025.64 times sweeter than sucrose in relation to passion fruit juice containing 9.4 g/100 g of sucrose, followed by sucralose (590.02), cyclamate/saccharin blend 2:1 (262.28), aspartame (171.62), and stevia (94.72). The acceptance test of the present study confirmed aspartame and sucralose as the best sucrose substitutes when compared with other sweeteners.