Artificial sweeteners

A sugar substitute is a food additive that duplicates the effect of sugar in taste, usually with less food energy. Some sugar substitutes are natural and some are synthetic. Those that are not natural are, in general, called artificial sweeteners.

The majority of sugar substitutes approved for food use are artificially-synthesized compounds. However, some bulk natural sugar substitutes are known, including sorbitol and xylitol, which are found in berries, fruit, vegetables, and mushrooms. It is not commercially viable to extract these products from fruits and vegetables, so they are produced by catalytic hydrogenation of the appropriate reducing sugar. For example, xylose is converted to xylitol, lactose to lactitol, and glucose to sorbitol. Other natural substitutes are known, but are yet to gain official approval for food use.

Biotechnology (sometimes shortened to "biotech") is generally accepted as the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make useful products, or "any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives there of, to make or modify products or processes for specific use"