Meet The Zero-Calorie Sweetener You Didn’t Know You Were Eating

New to the Western scene, monk fruit has been a part of Chinese medicine for centuries. (Getty Images)

If you’re looking for a sugar substitute for your drinks and baked goods, you’ve generally got two options: Artificial sweeteners (think aspartame or saccharin) that pack the flavor but might not be all that healthy, and “natural” alternatives (looking at you, stevia and erythritol) that leave much to be desired in the taste category.

Enter monk fruit. Made by steeping the small, gourd-like luo han fruit (grown in China and New Zealand) into a tea, monk fruit extract is about 200 times sweeter than cane sugar and contains no calories.

And here’s the thing: Even if you haven’t heard of monk fruit, you’ve probably eaten it. It’s a star player in calorie-free soda company Zevia’s sweetener mix, and Arctic Zero and So Delicious include it in their ice creams. Regularly devour Quest Bars? Ruby’s Rockets pops? Kashi? Emergen-C? They all contain monk fruit.

But is that a good thing? Is monk fruit the healthy, calorie-free sweetener we’ve all been waiting for, or just a fad that hasn’t been taken down yet? We asked the experts.

Why Is Monk Fruit Suddenly In Everything?

While monk fruit has been used as a sweetener in Asia for centuries, it’s just now gaining steam on this side of the world. The fact that the sweetener is calorie- and sugar-free is its biggest seller. “Monk fruit contains [chemical compounds called] mogrosides that have a strong, sweet taste but are not considered sugar,” Kristin Kirkpatrick, RD, manager of nutrition services at Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, tells Yahoo Health. So while monk fruit extract tastes sweet, it doesn’t contain any carbohydrates — or spike your blood sugar.

Another reason for its sudden star turn: It has the authentically sweet mouthfeel that other sugar-free sweeteners, such as stevia or erythritol, are missing. Zevia, a diet soda that’s sweetened with a combination of stevia, monk fruit, and erythritol, was one of the first to fold monk fruit into its formula. Though monk fruit only makes up about 15 percent of its sweetening system (monk fruit is still pretty expensive), Zevia credits the fruit with making the drink taste more like a conventional soda, cutting some of the bitterness that can come from stevia.

Are There Benefits To Using Monk Fruit Over Other Sweeteners?

Monk fruit, like stevia, is generally recognized as safe by the FDA. “Monk fruit may be [a healthy alternative to sugar,] but we don’t know for sure. Just because it’s zero-calorie doesn’t mean that it is better than real sugar,” Nicole Avena, PhD, author of the upcoming What To Eat When You’re Pregnant, explains to Yahoo Health. “In fact, studies suggest that when people use zero-calorie sweeteners, they end up eating more calories later on. So while you might save a few calories now, if you are eating more later, it evens out. Also, if you are overweight or obese, non-calorie sweeteners have been shown to lead to even more calorie intake, so they may actually be causing one to gain more weight.”

While science-backed insight is spotty, a 2011 study found that monk fruit can have anti-inflammatory effects and might help diabetic patients by stabilizing blood sugar levels. A separate study found that monk fruit might have antioxidant properties.

Sure, all this sounds good — but not good enough to win over Kirkpatrick or Avena. “I personally don’t see any benefit of it. I think it is fine to use occasionally (as other sugars are), but if you are trying to lose weight, you are better off just cutting back on all added sweeteners and sticking to real, whole fruits to sweeten your foods and drinks,” Avena says.

Are There Any Downsides?

Both Kirkpatrick and Avena point out that eating foods that contain monk fruit would make it harder to stop craving sugar. “Consuming products that contain monk fruit as a sweetener (as with any sweetener) does not train your taste buds to not want sugar,” Kirkpatrick explains. “As long as we keep giving our taste buds the sweet taste we are craving, we will continue to look for sweets in our diet (real, or artificial).”

Avena agrees. “Zero-calorie sweeteners cause many of the effects that real sugars do,” she says, “such as acutely increasing blood insulin levels (just tasting something sweet can do this), and also increasing activity in reward related brain regions,” she explains.

So What’s The Verdict: Is It Healthy Or Not?

“While it’s an interesting addition to the food industry, I’m hesitant to say that any sweetener — artificial, “natural,” or flat-out fake — is ‘healthy’ since most individuals are eating too much of all these things,” Kirkpatrick says. As far as sweeteners go, monk fruit likely won’t harm you — but it’s not a free pass to sweeten everything, either. Both experts recommend weaning off all sweet foods, regardless of whether that sweetness is coming from sugar or a sugar-free substitute.