Maltitol vs Xylitol and 6 More Gelato Sweeteners Compared

Eight sweeteners, two numbers that decide everything, and one rule that catches everyone: nothing replaces sucrose one for one. Match the freezing power and you lose sweetness and solids. Match the sweetness and the gelato freezes wrong. Here is the whole comparison in one place.

Eight white powders that behave nothing alike below zero.

The Eight Sweeteners, Side by Side

Every sweetener in a gelato does two separate jobs, and the site keeps them on separate dials. POD measures sweetness against sucrose at 100. PAC measures how hard the sweetener depresses the freezing point, again against sucrose at 100. A sweetener that is half as sweet and twice as anti-freezing is not a weaker sugar. It is a different tool.

PAC is not a taste measurement at all. Freezing point depression is colligative: it counts dissolved particles, so for a given weight the smaller the molecule, the more particles and the harder the depression. Sucrose weighs 342.3 g/mol and anchors the scale at 100. Divide 342.3 by any other molecular weight and you have that sweetener's PAC. That is why the numbers below are derived rather than guessed, and why you can check them yourself.

The energy figures are the EU conversion factors from Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex XIV: polyols count as 2.4 kcal/g, and erythritol has its own entry at 0 kcal/g. The US FDA assigns allulose 0.4 kcal/g and excludes it from both total and added sugars on the nutrition panel.

Then there is the second table, the one that decides whether a formula survives contact with a customer.

Quick reference. Match PAC first, because PAC decides whether the tub scoops. Fix the sweetness gap afterwards with steviol glycosides or sucralose, and fix the solids gap with inulin or maltodextrin. Never swap a bulk sweetener gram for gram.

Figure 1. Only maltitol and isomalt sit near the sucrose corner. Everything else trades sweetness for freezing power.

Two entries in the tolerance column carry real weight. The erythritol figure is not folklore: EFSA re-evaluated erythritol in 2023 and set an acceptable daily intake of 0.5 g per kg of body weight, which is 35 g for a 70 kg adult. It is the first time EFSA derived an ADI for an additive from an immediate effect, diarrhoea, rather than a chronic one, and the panel explicitly refused to exempt erythritol from the laxative warning. Separately, Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex III, requires the statement "excessive consumption may produce laxative effects" on any food carrying more than 10 percent added polyols. A sugar free gelato at 12 percent erythritol triggers that label, and three 100 g servings put a 70 kg adult at the ADI.

The cooling column deserves a caveat that most sweetener charts omit. The cold hit from xylitol and erythritol comes from their negative heat of solution, which means it is generated when the crystals dissolve. In a gelato the sweetener dissolved hours earlier in the pasteuriser, so the effect at the counter is far weaker than the same sweetener in a lozenge or a chewing gum. Expect a clean cold edge on the finish, not the menthol blast the raw numbers imply.

One warning belongs outside the tables. Xylitol is severely toxic to dogs, which matters for a shop that puts a tasting spoon within reach of a customer's pet.

Maltitol vs Xylitol: Bulk Against Freezing Power

Verdict: maltitol if you want to keep the recipe you already have, xylitol if you want a softer scoop and are prepared to rebalance everything around it.

These two are opposites dressed in the same white crystal. Maltitol at 344.3 g/mol is fractionally larger than sucrose, so its PAC of 99 is effectively sucrose's. Swap them and the freezing curve barely moves. Xylitol at 152.2 g/mol supplies 2.25 times as many particles per gram, so its PAC of 220 lands in dextrose territory and beyond.

Take a white base at 1000 g whose sugar phase is 140 g sucrose plus 20 g dextrose. That phase contributes 155 POD points and 178 PAC points.

Maltitol is the only swap on that list that leaves the recipe structurally intact. You lose 35 POD points, about a fifth of the sweetness, and you fix that with a pinch of steviol glycosides. Xylitol at 64 g matches the freezing point and hands you a 76 g hole in total solids, which shows up as a thin, fast melting gelato unless you backfill it.

The digestive ceiling settles most real decisions. At 141 g of maltitol per 1000 g of mix, a 100 g serving carries 14 g of maltitol, comfortably inside the commonly reported 30 to 40 g daily tolerance for a single serving but past the 10 percent labelling trigger. Xylitol at 64 g per 1000 g gives 6.4 g per serving and clears the trigger.

Maltitol vs Stevia: Two Jobs, Not Two Options

Verdict: this is not a choice, it is a pairing. Maltitol replaces the bulk, steviol glycosides replace the sweetness the bulk cannot deliver.

Steviol glycosides are 200 to 300 times sweeter than sucrose and contribute no mass, no solids and no freezing point depression. Dosed at the 0.02 to 0.05 percent that a gelato needs, they are invisible to every number in a balance sheet except POD. Maltitol is the mirror image: it carries the mass, the solids and very nearly the freezing behaviour of the sugar it replaced, and falls short only on sweetness.

Put them together and the arithmetic closes. Replace 140 g sucrose with 141 g maltitol, recover the missing 35 POD points with roughly 0.15 g of a 300x steviol glycoside preparation, and the mix lands at the original POD and PAC with 40 percent less energy from the sugar phase. The sugar substitution tool runs this calculation against a target so you do not have to.

The limit is sensory rather than arithmetic. Steviol glycosides carry a liquorice tail that grows with dose, and a gelato asked to take all its sweetness from stevia will taste of stevia. Keeping a bulk sweetener in the formula keeps the stevia dose small enough to disappear.

Allulose vs Xylitol, and Erythritol vs Allulose

Verdict: allulose is the best behaved of the three in the tub and the only one an EU gelateria cannot legally use.

Start with the law, because it settles the question before the chemistry does. Allulose is not on the EU list of authorised novel foods. EFSA assessed a D-allulose application in 2025 and could not establish its safety, and four further applications remain pending, so it may not be placed on the EU market as a food. In the United States it is generally recognised as safe and carries the favourable nutrition panel treatment described above, and FSANZ authorised it in 2024. The comparison below therefore only matters outside the EU.

Against xylitol, allulose wins on texture and loses on sweetness. Both sit in the same freezing region, PAC 190 against 220, but allulose actively interferes with ice crystal growth and contributes no cooling sensation, while xylitol at POD 100 matches sucrose for sweetness where allulose at POD 70 does not. Allulose also browns readily, which is a gift in a caramel base and a defect in a white one.

Against erythritol, the difference is solubility and it is decisive. Erythritol and allulose share a POD of about 70, so on the palate they are interchangeable. Erythritol's theoretical PAC of 280 is the best in the table, but it is poorly soluble in cold water and a gelato spends its life in cold water. Above roughly 8 percent of the mix the excess crystallises during hardening and the customer eats grit, a defect close to the lactose driven sandy texture that plagues high milk solids bases. Allulose is far more soluble and has no such ceiling.

Allulose vs Stevia: The Legal Question Comes First

Verdict: inside the EU, steviol glycosides are the only one of the two you may use at all.

Setting the authorisation issue aside, these two are not competing for the same slot. Allulose is a bulk sweetener that brings solids, body and a strong freezing effect. Steviol glycosides bring sweetness and nothing else. A formula built on allulose alone lands sweet enough for many palates at POD 70 and needs no intensity sweetener; a formula built on steviol glycosides alone has no body at all and must borrow solids from somewhere.

In markets where both are permitted, the practical answer is usually both: allulose for the structure at 70 to 90 g per 1000 g, and a whisper of steviol glycosides to close the last few POD points without pushing the allulose dose into its own tolerance range.

Every Swap Opens Two Holes, and You Have to Fill Both

Look again at the swap table. Every low energy route that matches PAC removes mass, and mass in a gelato is total solids. Take out 76 g of solids from a 1000 g mix and the mix drops from roughly 38 percent solids to 30 percent, which is not a slightly lighter gelato. It is a thin one that melts on the way to the table.

The fix is two ingredients that most sugar free formulas already carry. Inulin contributes solids and body with a PAC and POD of essentially zero, so it fills the hole without touching either dial. Maltodextrin does the same at a lower cost with a small POD contribution, and the maltodextrin comparison covers the dextrose equivalent choice. Trehalose is the specialist: at POD 45 and PAC 100 it lowers perceived sweetness without touching the freezing point, which is exactly what you need when an intensity sweetener has overshot.

Work in this order and the formula converges quickly. Set PAC with the bulk sweetener, close the solids gap with inulin or maltodextrin, close the sweetness gap with steviol glycosides or sucralose, then check the whole thing in the PAC calculator and the POD calculator before you make a litre of it. The sugar selection guide covers the same decision for conventional sugars, and no added sugar gelato covers the labelling claims you may and may not make afterwards.

Related Concepts

• POD, sweetening power and PAC, anti freezing power
• Maltitol in gelato
• Erythritol and allulose
• Isomalt in gelato
• Sorbitol in gelato
• Sugar substitution tool
• No added sugar gelato