The physical properties, taste preference and effect on blood glucose level were compared between pudding sweetened by sugar and erythritol.
The disturbing denaturation that occurred during heating was less with erythritol than with sugar, endowing the erythritol gel with greater rupture stress and greater elastic modulus than the sugar gel. The erythritol gel had a smaller rupture strain than the sugar gel, resulting in no significant difference in the sensory evaluation of texture between the pudding samples. There was no significant difference in the evaluated sweetness between the pudding samples, although the lighter yellow color of the erythritol pudding was a demerit. Eating the sugar pudding increased the blood glucose level, but eating the erythritol pudding did not. The erythritol pudding contained about 50% less energy than the sugar pudding.
These results suggest that the erythritol-sweetened pudding was suitable as a dietary sweet for diabetic patients.
