When The Sugar Association notes that all-natural sugar (sucrose) consumption has declined nearly 34 percent over the past 40 years, we are often asked, what about all the other caloric sweeteners often used in its place? Haven’t they gone up?

It comes as a surprise to many that U.S. consumption of total caloric sweeteners —which includes natural sugar and the multitude of other sweeteners that it is often lumped together with—has actually declined as well. In fact, total deliveries dropped 15.3 percent between 1999-2013. This is according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service data.

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