What is monk fruit, and where does it come from?

Monk fruit is a small, very sweet, melon that has been cultivated in the remote mountains of Southern China for centuries.

Most of the monk fruit in the entire world comes from a small region called Guilin. It’s a subtropical, mountainous terrain with elevations of 300 to 500 meters, ample rainfall, and moist, well-drained soil, which is the perfect cultivation environment for this fruit.

Because Monk Fruit has a limited natural growing area and it is difficult to cultivate successfully, it did not enter the general herb tradition of China, which depended on more abundant products. As a result, it is not mentioned in the traditional herb guides. However, according to legend, monk fruit is named after the Buddhist monks who first cultivated the fruit nearly 800 years ago.

There’s also a long history of monk fruit being used as a medicinal plant. It’s traditionally believed to alleviate cough and throat inflammation, and It has also been used to treat heat strokes by drinking its tea, and diabetes by using it to replace sugar. This brings us to the idea of using monk fruit as a sweetener…

Monk Fruit as a Sweetener

Monk fruit is sweet like any other fruit, but what makes monk fruit special is that its sweetness doesn’t come from sugar but from natural antioxidants called Mogrosides. There’s different types of mogrosides, but one in particular called Mogroside V (as in 5 in roman numerals, so it's pronounced Mogroside Five) is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, is zero glycemic, and it has no calories.

This level of sweetness may sound crazy, and it kind of is, but it is nothing new to the sweetener industry…The industry has had access to ultra-sweet compounds for a long time. For example:

• Sucralose: 600x sweeter than sugar
• Aspartame: 200 x sweeter than sugar
• Stevia (Steviol glycosides): 200-300 x sweeter than sugar
• Monk Fruit (Mogroside V): ~250 x sweeter than sugar

Why is monk fruit so popular?

Monk Fruit became popular because as opposed to sucralose, aspartame, advantame, and others, monk fruit is 100% natural. Stevia is natural too, but it has a weird aftertaste that many people don’t like.

The fact that (1) it's natural, (2) tastes great, and (3) that it's very sweet made it a popular sweetener fairly quickly, and today you will see monk fruit in your sweetener aisle in every major grocery store, both online and in-person.

Now that we know why people love monk fruit sweeteners so much, let’s explore how they are made…

How is monk fruit made?

Only about 0.5-1% of the raw fruit is Mogroside V, again, the active compound that makes monk fruit sweet, so millions of monk fruits are harvested and processed each year to satisfy global demand for monk fruit sweeteners.

This is the manufacturing flow chart of one of the biggest monk fruit producers:

It may seem complicated at first, but it can be broken down into 5 major steps:

1. Washing and Crushing: The monk fruit is washed and crushed
2. Extraction & filtration: The juice is extracted and filtered multiple times to remove impurities.
3. Pasteurization: The juice extract is pasteurized to kill any microorganism that may be present in the product.
4. Spray Drying: The juice is then sprayed dried, which is a process that transforms liquid into powder. Of course, this step is only necessary when making monk fruit extract in powder form.
5. Packing & Testing: Finally, the product is packaged and tested to make sure it’s safe to consume.

These extracts are then used to make every type of monk fruit sweetener available in the market… There’s many different types of monk fruit sweeteners, but they can be grouped into 2 main categories, monk fruit extracts and monk fruit blends. I made blog posts and videos about each of these so make sure to check them out if interested.

Also, I created a monk fruit guide. It’s 100% free and it allows you to, in a few minutes, understand the different monk fruit types and decide which might be the best for you.

100% Monk Fruit Extract

We sell 100% Monk Fruit Extract, here's the link if you want to learn more :)