Starting in 2018, Nestlé candy products will include a newly formulated version of sugar. The innovation will allow the company to lower sugar content 40 percent, says The New York Times.
Without divulging exactly how Nestlé changed the traditional sugar molecule, Dr. Stefan Catsicas, the company’s chief technology officer, explained, “It is sugar, but it is assembled differently so it can disassemble easily in your mouth with less going into your gastrointestinal tract.”
The company is in the process of patenting the technology and may eventually sell it to other manufacturers, but it isn’t a sweetener you could mix into your coffee, says Catsicas.
Marion Nestle, a professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University, told the Times that she’s skeptical the new sugar will greatly help consumers to lower their sugar intake, because candy isn’t actually the biggest source of sugar in the American diet. That title goes to soda, “and then what the Department of Agriculture calls grain-based desserts,” she said.