Is Monk Fruit Extract Healthy?
30% OFF FIRST TIME ORDERS! USE CODE: TRY30
Shop Now
The quest for the perfect sweetener—one with zero calories but none of the baggage of artificial chemicals—is endless. If something sounds too good… it makes you wonder, if there’s a catch.
In recent years, monk fruit extract has emerged as a champion in this arena, lauded as a "natural" and "healthy" alternative to sugar. But as we peel back the layers of marketing, China being the main supplier, a critical question arises: Is monk fruit extract truly as healthy as it's claimed to be?
At Daily Elements, we are committed to ingredient transparency and rigorous scientific validation. Our formulations are built on a foundation of evidence and years of human experience, which is why we have made the conscious decision not to use monk fruit extract in our products.
Monk fruit, or luo han guo, is a small, green gourd native to Southern China. Its scientific name is Siraitia grosvenorii. For centuries, it was used in traditional Chinese medicine right along the Rhino Horns. However, the sweetener you find on store shelves is not the simple, dried fruit.
Modern monk fruit sweeteners are the product of a highly industrialised process. The sweetness doesn't come from fructose or sucrose like in other fruits. Instead, it comes from unique antioxidant compounds called mogrosides. To create the sweetener, the fruit is crushed, its juice is infused with hot water, and this infusion is then filtered and processed to isolate and concentrate the mogrosides, primarily Mogroside V, “natural” huh?
The resulting powder is intensely sweet—up to 250 times sweeter than table sugar—with no calories. Because it is so potent, it is almost always mixed with bulking agents like erythritol, dextrose, or maltodextrin to make it usable in cooking and products. This fact alone means you are often consuming more than just "monk fruit".
It's a simple fact of life that many major greens brands use Monk Fruit to sweeten the deal, so to say, on their product taste, but its sweetness will overshadow all other things they use.
With formulae as complicated as 40 or 80 or 120 ingredients, there is certainly a lot of ‘chemical’ or just ‘artificial’ flavour to hide, and who can blame them? Wait, we can.
We believe that natural taste is what allows products to actually be added to anything, mixed with food, made with sweets and sours, not everything has to be a sugary-tasting bomb..
The primary reason for caution surrounding monk fruit extract is the state of scientific research. While it has been granted "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS) status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), this designation is not a guarantee of long-term health. It primarily indicates a lack of evidence of overt, short-term harm.
When we examine the body of evidence, a troubling pattern emerges:
Dominated by Animal Studies: The vast majority of safety and biological studies on mogrosides have been conducted on rats and mice. While these studies are a necessary first step in toxicology, they are not a substitute for human research. Animal metabolism, gut microbiota, and immune systems can differ significantly from ours. A result observed in a rodent does not automatically translate to a human.
Absence of Long-Term Human Trials: To date, there are no large-scale, long-term clinical trials that have investigated the effects of daily, sustained consumption of monk fruit extract in humans. Science simply does not know what happens to our bodies when we consume this concentrated extract every day for 5, 10, or 20 years.
This lack of long-term human data means we have no robust scientific answers to critical questions:
What is the long-term impact on the human gut microbiome?
Does it affect hormonal signaling or metabolic health over time?
Could chronic exposure lead to subtle inflammatory responses or undiscovered allergic sensitivities?
1. The Gut Microbiome: The gut is a complex ecosystem. Non-nutritive sweeteners, even "natural" ones, are foreign substances that can potentially alter the delicate balance of the trillions of bacteria residing there. Some preliminary in vitro (test tube) and animal studies on other sweeteners have shown shifts in gut flora. While the evidence on monk fruit is still sparse and inconclusive, the absence of negative evidence is not the same as proof of safety. Without long-term human studies, its impact remains a significant unknown.
2. The "Natural" Halo Effect: The term "natural" is a powerful marketing tool, but it can be misleading. While monk fruit originates from a plant, the end product is a highly processed and concentrated chemical extract. Consuming isolated mogrosides is not biologically equivalent to eating the whole fruit, which contains fiber, vitamins, and other phytonutrients that mediate its effects.
3. The Impact on Sweet Cravings and Metabolism: High-intensity sweeteners provide an intensely sweet taste without the corresponding caloric energy. Some research suggests this disconnect can interfere with the body's learned associations between sweetness and energy intake. While this is still a topic of debate, it's a variable that has not been adequately studied in the context of long-term monk fruit use.
4. Potential for upset stomach or constipation: Just because we don’t metabolize it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us. Small percent of Monk Fruit report severe reactions to even medium doses of sweeteners.
For a product to be considered unequivocally healthy for daily consumption, it must be backed by more than just short-term animal studies and a GRAS status. It requires robust, long-term human data—a standard of evidence that monk fruit extract currently fails to meet.
While many claim that it’s a safer choice than aspartame or high-fructose corn syrup, its reputation as a health food is premature and built on a shaky scientific foundation, and Chinese media, and not on tradition and trust.
At Daily Elements, our principle is one of scientific prudence and thousands of years of human experience.
We choose ingredients that are not only effective but are also supported by a deep well of scientific literature demonstrating their long-term safety and benefits in humans. Given the significant unanswered questions and the lack of comprehensive human trials, monk fruit extract does not meet this standard. As consumers, it's vital to look past the marketing claims and ask a simple question: Where is the long-term human data? In the case of monk fruit, the answer is, "It's not there yet”.
Sources:
https://getdailyelements.com/pages/microgreens
https://ific.org/insights/everything-you-need-to-know-about-monk-fruit-sweeteners/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7008860/
https://getdailyelements.com/products/daily-elements-standard
