Prevalence and Consumption of LNCS Among the Chemical Engineering Student Body at UCA

Abstract

This article focuses on researching the presence of low- and no-calorie sweeteners, known by their acronym LNCS (Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners), with the goal of identifying consumption trends and the current level of knowledge about these sweeteners among the study sample, which, for the purposes of this research, consisted of a portion of the active student population majoring in Chemical Engineering at the José Simeón Cañas Central American University. To this end, the digital tool Google Forms was used, which allowed for the collection of all necessary data from the 135 respondents. Among the most notable results, we found that various sweeteners are present in the most commonly consumed products, such as sucralose, acesulfame-K, aspartame, stevia, and maltitol. Sucralose was identified as the most prevalent sweetener, and it was also observed that the most frequent consumption rate is 1 to 2 times per week.