Erythritol vs Allulose: what is the difference?

How they differ

These are both sugar substitutes that behave almost like sugar in the mouth but not in the body, and they belong to different chemical classes. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol, C4H10O4, absorbed and excreted essentially unchanged. Allulose is a real sugar, a rare epimer of fructose with the same C6H12O6 formula as glucose, which the body absorbs but barely metabolises. That distinction matters in the kitchen: allulose browns and caramelises the way sugar does because it is one, and erythritol does not. Erythritol has the cooling mouthfeel that sugar alcohols share, while allulose does not, and allulose is the less sweet of the two at roughly 70 percent of sugar.

Side by side

Structural similarity 0.40 of 1, computed as a Morgan fingerprint Tanimoto coefficient. It measures shape, not effect.

Common questions

What is the difference between Erythritol and Allulose?

These are both sugar substitutes that behave almost like sugar in the mouth but not in the body, and they belong to different chemical classes. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol, C4H10O4, absorbed and excreted essentially unchanged. Allulose is a real sugar, a rare epimer of fructose with the same C6H12O6 formula as glucose, which the body absorbs but barely metabolises.

Is Erythritol bigger than Allulose?

Allulose is the heavier molecule, 180.16 g/mol against 122.12 g/mol for Erythritol. Erythritol is C4H10O4 and Allulose is C6H12O6.