HEALTH: Thaumatin a possible alternative to sugar?

Considering the harmful effects of the current trend of sugar intake, health conscious consumers are now on the lookout for alternative, low- calorie sweeteners.

Unfortunately, most of these sweeteners are based entirely on chemical compounds and the health implications of consistent consumption of chemically formulated products are increasingly questioned in Western markets.

Clearly, the only alternative would be a natural, low-calorie sweetener and this provides a ready market for Africa’s very own Thaumatin.

Thaumatin is a naturally occurring protein sweetener found in the fruits, stalks and leaves of a West African shrub locally known as Katemfe.

In the United Kingdom, the Tate and Lyle uses it to manufacture a low calorie sweetner branded Talin.

Interestingly, this plant can only bear fruits in its native environments; so the company imports the fruits from West African countries like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and from Malaysia.

The Katemfe shrub thrives in the West African rain forest zone; it contains 1-3 black seeds enclosed in a membranous sac called aril, from which Thaumatin is extracted. Due to its versatility, Thaumatin is used, not only as a sweetener, but also as a general flavour enhancing agent, making it perfect for a wide range of uses in the food and beverage industry.

It also has the remarkable advantage of being roughly 2000 times sweeter than sugar. This ensures that it is used in extremely small amounts so that its caloric value (four calories per gram) at use level in foods is negligible.

Thaumatin has been classified as Generally Recognised as Safe by the US Food and Drug Administration.

It is non-toxic, since it is digested like any other protein, non-teratogenic (does not interfere with normal development of foetuses), and is only mildly allergenic.

The Ghanaian government in collaboration with private investors has undertaken a local agro- forestry project in which large tracts of land are acquired and used for cultivation of commercially useful plants such as Katemfe.

They are also working at empowering their local industry to control a greater part of the potentially booming Thaumatin industry through establishment of Thaumatin processing plants are in various locations in Ghana with technical and financial assistance from Germany.

Their German collaborators are also training Ghanaians to run and maintain the plants long after the exit of the foreign experts. The aim here is to put an end to the West African trend of exporting raw materials with minimal profits, and spending large sums to import the finished product.

However, while the Katemfe plant is native to West Africa and Thaumatin itself was discovered in Nigeria, patents on the genes responsible for the sweet taste of Thaumatin are filed in the US where scientists have successfully inserted these genes into bacteria.

This scientific breakthrough means that Thaumatin can also be obtained from genetically engineered bacteria; providing a cheaper, faster and easier substitute for the traditional cultivation, harvesting and processing method that Ghana is warming up for.

Here in Nigeria, where Thaumatin was first discovered, very little has been done to make use of this golden opportunity which Nature has handed to Africa.