# What are sugar-free candies made out of?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-sugar-free-candies-made-out-of/155164>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 14, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-sugar-free-candies-made-out-of/155164 "2003-02-14T22:17:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-sugar-free-candies-made-out-of/155164/1 "2003-02-14T22:17:40Z")

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A standard hard candy recipe involves lots of sugar, some corn-syrup, and water plus flavors as needed. Without the sugar products, it’s just water, and adding Nutrasweet will just make it sweet water. What magical ingredients do they add to make it solid?

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**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-sugar-free-candies-made-out-of/155164/2 "2003-02-14T22:28:32Z")

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I have a pack of Weight Watcher Fruities here in front of me. Not completely hard, but kind of like Jujubes.

Ingredients: maltitol syrup, gum arabic, water, citric acid, blackberry juice concentrate (adds negligible amount of sugar), glycerin, natural flavor, sodium citrate, artificial flavor, aspartame, acesulfame K.

I’m thinking in this product, it’s the glycerin. In true hard candy, I’m not sure.

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**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-sugar-free-candies-made-out-of/155164/3 "2003-02-15T00:49:24Z")

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It’s the [maltitol](http://www.preparedfoods.com/archives/1999/9906/9906spi.htm), a sugar-alcohol, which has many of the properties of sucrose, like the ability to make hard candy, but isn’t metabolized in the same fashion.