Sweetness is but one of the positive features of sucrose (regular sugar). It also provides bulk and structure for foods, reduces water activity to help prevent food spoilage, depresses freezing temperature to make ice cream smooth, caramelizes, and does a variety of other things.
High-intensity sweeteners — such as stevia, monk fruit, sucralose, aspartame and others — have benefits. But because they are so sweet by volume, they do not have the ability to add bulk, structure or mouthfeel to foods and beverages. Next time you’re in the grocery store and see one of these on the shelf, take a look at the ingredients list. What do you see listed first? Probably maltodextrin or dextrose. Those ingredients are there to provide bulk to the high-intensity sweetener, and those ingredients has the same calories as regular sugar.
Other sugar alternatives, such as sugar alcohols, often have much less sweetness than sucrose, which requires more volume to achieve the same sweetness. Furthermore, sugar alcohols do not have the ability to caramelize, or produce the desirable browning in baked goods.
Unlike some other sugar alternatives, tagatose is fully functional in foods and beverages.
Tagatose…here are a few general features, but more details (including some examples in applications) are described here.
90% as sweet as sucrose • Clean taste • Sweetness potency relative to sucrose is consistent across concentrations (unlike some other sweeteners) • Provides a sweet, fruity, caramel-like flavor profile • Blends well with other high-intensity sweeteners and longer polysaccharides • Absorbs water from the environment and retains it just as well as sucrose • Reduces water activity better than sucrose • Anti-microbial • Reduces stickiness • Accelerates browning • Readily crystallizes • Depresses freezing point