why we sweeten with monk fruit and not the obvious things

Collagen on its own tastes like almost nothing, with a faint savoury edge and a slight natural sweetness from all that glycine. Something has to make it taste like a drink you would choose over water.

That decision tells you more about a brand than anything on the front of the can. Here is how we got to monk fruit.

what it actually is

Monk fruit is a small round melon, luo han guo, grown mostly in southern China and used there for centuries. Its sweetness does not come from sugar. It comes from compounds called mogrosides, chiefly mogroside five, which get extracted and concentrated.

Mogrosides are somewhere between 150 and 250 times sweeter than sugar, so the amount needed in a can is tiny. They are not sugars, and your body does not process them as sugars. That is the entire appeal.

the insulin question

This is what people actually want to know, and there is a good controlled study on it. In 2017, Tey and colleagues published in the International Journal of Obesity. They gave participants beverages sweetened four different ways, sucrose, aspartame, stevia and monk fruit, then measured blood glucose, insulin, and how much people ate at the following meal.

The sugar drink did what sugar drinks do. The monk fruit drink produced no meaningful rise in either blood glucose or insulin. And participants did not compensate by eating more later, which is the objection usually raised about sweeteners.

That result lines up exactly with the chemistry, because mogrosides are largely not absorbed as sugar in the small intestine. They deliver sweetness and then leave.

what we ruled out and why

Sugar was easy. A properly sweet twelve ounce beverage takes something like 25 to 35 grams of it, which turns a drink you have every day into a completely different decision.

Sucralose and acesulfame potassium are cheap, stable and effective, which is why they dominate the shelf. They are also the ingredients people scan labels to avoid, and we would rather not be on that list.

Stevia I genuinely wanted to work. The problem is the finish. Steviol glycosides leave a lingering bitter liquorice note, and once you notice it you cannot stop noticing it.

Monk fruit finishes clean. Paired with a small amount of organic juice concentrate, it lands somewhere that tastes like fruit rather than like a sweetener.

what is actually in the can

One gram of total sugar. Zero grams added. That single gram comes from organic lemon and peach juice concentrate, which are in there for flavour and acidity as much as anything.

Organic monk fruit extract carries the rest. No artificial sweeteners, no sugar alcohols, nothing that needs a footnote.

When we say hormone conscious, this is what we mean. Formulated with restraint. One gram of sugar, nothing added, no artificial sweeteners, and a short ingredient list you can read out loud without stumbling.

the research i leaned on

• Tey SL, Salleh NB, Henry J, Forde CG. Effects of aspartame-, monk fruit-, stevia- and sucrose-sweetened beverages on postprandial glucose, insulin and energy intake. International Journal of Obesity. 2017;41(3):450-457.
• Li C, Lin LM, Sui F, et al. Chemistry and pharmacology of Siraitia grosvenorii: a review. Chinese Journal of Natural Medicines. 2014;12(2):89-102.
• US Food and Drug Administration. Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notices for Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle (luo han guo) fruit extract.

LÉS is a beverage, not medicine, and nothing here is medical advice.