Maltitol?

[Vlad_]

I've been trying to quit sugar for the last few years, but can't jump more than one month. I'm considering maltitos as an alternative, is it healthy/no/neutral?

[Leo Gura]

There is Stevia, although it's kinda gross.

[Osaid]

IIRC maltitol still has a notable effect on blood sugar, although to a lesser degree than sugar. You see it a lot in sugar-free stuff but it still adds up pretty easily.

My personal favorite is erythritol or monk fruit, or a combo of the two. They both have no effect on blood sugar and they taste exactly like sugar. Also, erythritol is apparently good for your oral health.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Osaid

[mmKay]

 

I was having this when on keto diet. That's as close of a taste as it gets to sugar. 

Note its been said that sugar alcohols can fck up your gut microbiome over time. 

Alternatively, you can look into a drink called water kefir. Its a SCOBY that feeds on sugar. With some experience you can make it taste 10 times better than regular soft drinks. + its a raw probiotic bomb. 

When i drink it regularly, my gut becomes a volcano and could digest half a horse no problem. Also eating sugar seems to be no problem because the kefir feeds on it. 

 

Water kefir bible:

https://www.yemoos.com/pages/water-kefir-faq-introduction-basics

 

 

Second fermentation : ( my fave part, literally infinite fizzy soda potential) 

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by mmKay

[Michael569]

Any artificial sweetener that takes you away from sugar is beneficial. Plenty of observational data to confirm that. 

Ideally, you want to get to not needing to sweeten your liquids, but as a transition from sugar to sugar-like (anything) is great. Whatever sweetener gets you there is the one you should choose. 

It's like smoking -> vaping -> no longer smoking transition. The end goal is not needing anything but it might take some time to get there. 

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by Michael569

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Any artificial sweetener that takes you away from sugar is beneficial. Plenty of observational data to confirm that. 

Very dubious statement.

I would rather eat real sugar than aspartame. That's what I do.

Some sugar is okay. It's not toxic like the artificial stuff.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Very dubious statement.

I would rather eat real sugar than aspartame. That's what I do.

Some sugar is okay. It's not toxic like the artificial stuff.

What is the aspect of this stuff that you are most worried about? When you say "toxic" what does it do exactly that makes it toxic? I don't know so I'm genuinely curious. 

 

from my perspective the way I look at it if I had a client and had to help him make a decision:

For some people sugar sweetened drinks can be tipping point towards becoming obese and pre-diabetic and if you take that sugar away, you actually do see reduction in body weight, improvement of blood sugar and even fewer cardiovascular incidents. This is because people who consume this, consume up to 6 sugar sweetened beverages per day, 7 days a week. For them dietary adjustments are difficult and so if you can give them drinks that taste the same but have fewer calories, you get win win. 

we are talking about most people in the population who do not have control over their cravings, their diet and have a poor lifestyle (not the OP). For these people going away from as much sugar as possible is going to be benefit pretty much unanimously. 

With artificial sweeteners the only possible concern I know off is some mild microbiome changes only shown in one or two small studies. So the cost of that versus fewer people becoming prediabetic and having kidney damage, atherosclerotic deposit and eye damage e from uncontrolled hyperglycemia is a trade off worth doing every single time. 

You assume people drink this stuff sometimes. They don't. Everyone in my office who drinks coke, drinks 5 cans a day. It is an addiction. For those who have 1 redbull a week, I couldn't care less what redbull it is. Makes no difference

Maybe you know something I don't. Open to persuasion. 

Edited January 27, 2023 by Michael569

[eggopm3]

My parents are Keto& sugar free (as much as possible anyway), and in the process of eating their many artificially sweetened desserts, the conclusion Ive mostly drawn is a thumbs down in terms of taste. Maltitol and Monk Fruit are the most palatable (but maltitol can cause diarrhea, so Monk fruit is the winner). But honestly I'd prefer to just eat unsweetened things rather than the weird icky-sweet tastes of the alternate sweeteners.

What would be a massive game changer would be Left-handed Sugar. It's literally just the sugar molecule mirrored, but because biology evolved to adapt to right-handed molecules our bodies cannot process it, BUT it still behaves exactly like sugar in every other way and tastes exactly like sugar. The only reason it's not used is because it's extremely expensive to produce at a commercial scale because nature REALLY wants all sugar molecules to be right-handed. But one day I could envision a breakthrough allowing it to go mainstream, since it would be what all artificial sweeteners wish they were: 0 calorie sugar that tastes normal and doesn't affect blood sugar. 

Edited January 27, 2023 by eggopm3

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Michael569 said:

What is the aspect of this stuff that you are most worried about? When you say "toxic" what does it do exactly that makes it toxic? I don't know so I'm genuinely curious. 

Recent studies have found bad health effects from aspartame and Spenda. Can't recall exactly what the effects were.

It's just obvious to me that these chemicals are not natural to the body. Whereas sugar is natural, it's glucose. Your body lives on glucose. I don't think eating a glass of sugar will harm the body in any way. The only issue is that if you consume too much sugar for months you will become fat. So sugar is bad in the sense that it's excess calories without any antioxidants or nutrients.

I've even wondered if it wouldn't be healthy to live on an all sugar diet. At least then you aren't injesting any toxins, heavy metals, pesticides  amd other junk that comes with regular food. The nice thing about sugar is that it's pure.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Leo Gura

[JTL]

Do you have any sources/name of the studies? been searching around abit, but did not finding anything. Here is good youtuber that I respect, she looked at a study witch mice. 

 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, JTL said:

Do you have any sources/name of the studies?

Just google around:

https://usrtk.org/sweeteners/aspartame_health_risks/

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003950

[Leo Gura]

Your body converts all carbohydrates to glucose. So glucose cannot be bad for your body. You could just drink a glass-full of raw glucose. The only problem is that if you consume too many raw calories without antioxidants and other nutrients this will cause damage to the body. The antioxidants are needed to repair metabolic damage. But if you are eating plenty of antioxidant rich foods like raw fruits and veggies, then I believe you should be able to drink glucose and be perfectly healthy, as long as you don't drink so much it makes you fat.

In fact, I just went and drank a glass of dextrose, which is glucose.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Leo Gura

[universe]

Interesting, I've always had the idea that sugar isn't too bad (in moderation of course).

One time I went 30 days without it and felt a little more sharp and balanced. So there might be some cognitive effects but that could be from other stuff as well that comes with sugary food.

And taking a high dose will increase blood sugar rapidly and over time may lead to insulin resistance.

@Vlad_

I use dates to sweeten many things like porridge, cake etc. you can even use them for cooking.

But they can have heavy metals and pesticides. Alongside some healthy nutrients.

[Osaid]

Or, if you want sugar that isn't refined, just go for honey. Cutting refined sugar is really easy. Make sure the honey is legit though and use it in moderation.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Osaid

[Leo Gura]

I always wonder how much pesticides and heavy metals are in honey.

I prefer maple syrup. I could drink a bottle of maple syrup. Mmmmmm.....

Edited January 28, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Osaid]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I prefer maple syrup. I could drink a bottle of maple syrup. Mmmmmm.....

Taste-wise, maybe. Honey is probably better health-wise though.

Also, there are different varieties of honey. Most common is from clovers, which is the golden one you typically see. But, I've had some from blueberry bushes and buckwheat. Buckwheat honey tastes like caramel combined with molasses, the taste is amazing, especially the one I have right now. Not all buckwheat honey tastes exactly the same. The taste and composition of honey seems to be very dependent on the environment specific to the bees you get it from. I've also had a clover one that had a natural cinammon/petrichor type of flavour to it, which is up there with buckwheat for me. Buckwheat honey is black, looks like straight caramel/molasses and tastes like it too.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Osaid

[Osaid]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I always wonder how much pesticides and heavy metals are in honey.

It seems to be very environment-dependent. They use honey as a bio-indicator. Depending on how it is processed, some honey will have a certain heavy metal and then one honey will have an undetectable amount of that same heavy metal, just because they used some different equipment in their processing. 

Otherwise, the amount of heavy metals found are all well within "safe" levels. Note that any heavy metals you don't see in the chart were undetected across all honey. Here's a chart from this study:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311932.2020.1764182#:~:text=Honey is known to accumulate trace metals%2C cadmium%2C nickel%2C,(Hernández et al.%2C 2005

 

As for pesticides, I would say they are the bigger problem, although I still wouldn't be that concerned about it. They are very common in honey but the amount varies a lot depending on the environment it is in. If we compare the amount of pesticides in honey to something like fruit, it isn't really out of the ordinary. In fact, it probably has less pesticides than fruit. You'll probably get more pesticides in strawberries than honey. Not to mention, you don't really consume that much honey to begin with, you only need a small amount. 

You could also go for organic honey which ensures the area the bees are in don't have pesticides and that the bees are at a reasonable distance from industrial agriculture.

Otherwise, most of the environmental toxins are absorbed by the beeswax, not the honey.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Osaid