Low-Sugar Diets

Appears in
Professional Cooking: 10th Edition
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2025

  • About

Although it is not an allergen, sugar must be reduced or avoided in the diets of people suffering from diabetes or who are at risk of developing diabetes. For such diets, using artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, stevia, sucralose, or saccharin, are useful techniques. These sugar substitutes increase the sweet flavor in foods just as sugar does. However, when sugar is a part of the structure of a food, as in some baked goods and desserts, these ingredients are not suitable substitutes.

Many other people try to reduce sugar in their diets in order to reduce their weight or to avoid becoming overweight. For such diets, it is often possible to simply use a smaller quantity of sugar in the recipe. Naturally sweet ingredients, such as fresh and dried fruits, can often be added to a recipe to increase sweetness. Test any recipe changes, of course, before serving to customers.