Americans think we know about sweeteners, but do we?

The Ipsos Consumer Tracker asks Americans questions about culture, the economy and the forces that shape our lives. Here's one thing we learned this week.

Why we asked: This came in from the suggestion box. Which again, isn’t a thing but should be.

What we found: We asked two questions and I’m going to cover them out of order. We asked a lot of attitudinal questions about sweeteners. Most (66%) say they try to limit the artificial sweeteners they consume and they check the labels for sweeteners when grocery shopping. Perhaps because 55% say they are thinking more about sweeteners in their food and drink than they used to. Half also said they don’t think too much about these things. But the biggest agreement was 69% saying they have a good understanding of what is a natural or artificial sweetener. But do they? Hey, we asked, that too.

Almost everyone got that honey is a natural sweetener (95%!) but from there things got a little murkier. Only 33% were correct that stevia is natural, with even more (43%) saying it’s artificial. 70% correctly identified coconut sugar, while 23% said they didn’t know. Sucrose really confused people, as did fructose. People were not as sure about the artificial sweeteners aspartame, saccharin and sucralose as they were about honey. A majority correctly identified those as artificial, but there were also decent percentages of “don’t know,” and incorrect answers.

More insights from this wave of the Ipsos Consumer Tracker:

It’s not just higher prices driving increased grocery spend

It’s already holiday shopping time for the early birds

The Ipsos Care-o-Meter: What does America know about vs. what does America care about?