I know Stevia has had a weirdly difficult path to approval in a lot of places, but I’ve never seen any strong evidence of issues with it, either? Granted, Erythritol didn’t until now either.
Well, that sucks.
It sounds like Stevia is often supplemented with erythritol.
Yep, definitely something to be aware of if using that stuff. The Slimfast keto stuff is pretty good in that regard, especially if you stick to the items that aren’t try to replicate something that’s otherwise entirely sugar(like caramel). The chocolate peanut butter meal bar is 3g of sugar alcohol which I think is all erythritol, but I think they taste way better than something like an Atkins meal bar because they tone down the sweetness.
The Inno Foods stuff is pretty good in this regard too, although I find that they often are a little carbier than other options. For just trying to eat better they tend to be a pretty nice mix of nuts and seeds and the like.
I was using 10g of the Costco monk fruit / erythritol sweetener in my overnight oats for most breakfasts, and I occasionally used it for chocolate chip cookies. Like others have mentioned, I think I’ll just use sugar or honey when I want to sweeten something.
Agave works well too.
Seems that way. That sucks.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/health/zero-calorie-sweetener-heart-attack-stroke-wellness/index.html
There are plenty of other sweeteners you could use if calories (or glycemic index) are a concern.
My problem with Stevia is that I hate the aftertaste and whenever I use something with Stevia in it, I almost instantly regret it. I don’t have those issues with other artificial sweeteners.
Glycemic index is a concern, which other sweeteners should one use?
Honestly not sure.
Agreed. Certainly when it’s the only sweetener. I don’t notice it as much in since things I’ve had recently where it isn’t the only one.
I asked because I’ve been looking for that, it’s easy to find sweeteners that have no caloric content, but that don’t spike the glycemic index, that’s apparently much harder, because there’s always a study somewhere that says that actually, they do.
Bummer.
Depending on how serious you are about it, you could always do blood sugar tests to gauge how your body reacts to various sugar substitutes.
I’ve been noticing they’re sneaking “Invert sugar” as an ingredient into more and more foods. I just noticed it in the list of ingredients of the Madeleines someone brought to the office today from Sam’s Club.
That’s just sugar syrup with a funny name. No idea on the origins of the name, but I’ve heard my friends who are into baking talk about it.
Oh good! I mean, sugar is not good for you either, but at least it’s not the other stuff.
The body converts excess glucose into erythritol?
Not familiar with that site, but the way they put things into layman’s terms seems quite well done.
“flawed” is kind of a pointless thing to talk about with scientific studies
Every study is “flawed” because you can’t control every factor in a study to remove all flaws.
What the study did do, is point out that more research is needed!!! To fully understand the impact of this sugar substitute in our diets.
Personally, I think I will be cautious until more studies are done on the safety of erythritol
I wouldn’t put it that way. One reason randomized trials are so valuable is because, in theory and with proper numbers, you are distributing unknown variables equally between groups so that you can attempt to draw inferences about the variables being studied, while removing the effect of potential confounding influences. There are many, many ways to control for unknowns. Some study designs are much better at this than others.
What they are saying here by calling the study flawed is that there are some methodological issues. I’d tend to agree with you that no study is perfect, some are much more scientifically sound than others.
The takeaway here is that (as we already knew based on the study design) not only can’t you infer cause and effect, but there are other possible complications that might change the way the relationship between the study variable and the outcomes are viewed (I.e. if glucose intake causes elevated erythritol levels then how can you conclude that INTAKE of erythritol is the reason for increased risk)?
Absolutely.