Monk Fruit Sweetener

Siraitia grosvenorii (luo han guo or monk fruit) is a herbaceous perennial vine of the Cucurbitaceae (gourd) family, native to southern China and northern Thailand. The plant is cultivated for its fruit, whose extract is nearly 300 times sweeter than sugar and has been used in China as a low-calorie sweetener for cooling drinks and in traditional Chinese medicine.
The sweet taste of the fruit comes mainly from mogrosides, a group of triterpene glycosides that make up about 1% of the flesh of the fresh fruit.Through solvent extraction, a powder containing 80% mogrosides can be obtained, the main one being mogroside-5 (esgoside).Other similar agents in the fruit are siamenoside and neomogroside.