I’ve been on Dr. B’s diet for a few months now with mostly target blood sugars, and I’m interested in slowly introducing more foods that are from low carb cookbooks but not necessarily “Dr. B approved”. Mostly I’m talking about polyols (sugar alcohols) which Dr. B says to avoid, but I kind of want to give them a shot. Lots of the cookie recipes use polyols, and they look so tempting but I’m worried about what my blood sugars will be. Anyone have any comments about what your blood sugars are like after eating sugar alcohols?
The only sugar alcohol that doesn’t cause problems for me is erythritol. Malitol, sorbitol & xylitol caused spikes & I think they taste bad. They have a strange cooling effect after taste. I use erythritol in baking & love it. No BG impact or gastric upset. It’s 70% as sweet as sugar. The best combo is liquid Splenda (zero carbs) & erythritol. Used together the result tastes like sugar. It’s expensive & the best form is powdered so it mixes in easily. The granulated form can be powdered in a blender.
Thanks, Gerri…where do you buy liquid Splenda and erythritol? I’ve looked at our big grocery store and at our food co-op and I can’t find it. Do you have to order it online?
I’m not sure Dr. B says to “avoid” sugar alcohols, I think he suggests that you be informed about them I actually believe he advocates Xylitol. I think Dr. B’s problem with sugar alcohols is that for years they were touted as sugar-free when in fact many of them have a very real glycemic effect. David Mendosa has a nice chart of the glycemic index of different sugar alcohols and this is a good comparison, but doesn’t totally predict how your blood sugar or intestines will react.
I prefer stevia with Erthritol, that is how Truvia is formulated. You can also buy versions on-line, like the NSI version from vitacost. Many people also like to find these sorts of things at netrition.com. My local Whole Foods has a variety of this stuff, but not bulk Erythritol. Truvia is now basically everywhere.
I ordered some erythritol from Amazon. Many artificial sweeteners get bitter if you use too much to get a really sweet taste. One way around this is to mix two different ones together.
I buy FiberFit liquid Splenda & erythritol from www.netrition.com. Fiberfit looks expensive, but it’s super concentrated. Two TBS is the sweetening equivalent of one cup of sugar. I also get Monin syrup from netrition. Wonderful! It’s made with a liquid Splenda & erythritol. The Da Vinci syrups Dr. B recommends taste like flavored water. Awful. Monin chocolate & blackberry are delicious. Haven’t tried their other flavors. I order other low carb speciality products from netrition–oat fiber, resistant corn starch & wheat protein isolate 5000. I’m bound & determined to duplicate some of the foods I miss. Here’s my latest pizza https://forum.tudiabetes.org/topics/pizza-experiment-7recipe.
The pizza recipe looks great, but I can’t use cornstarch. Is there anything else that I can substitute for corn products? On that note, I’m having issues with artificial sweeteners because so many like Spenda are made from Corn. I’m pretty ok with Truvia. I was using liquid Stevia for awhile, but I’m sure that Corn is involved in that, too. I’d appreciate it if everyone could read their ingredients for Corn products. They even grow yeast on Corn. Red Star Yeast is the only one that is grown on cane sugar.
You can leave out the resistant corn starch in the recipe. It’s just fiber. Not the same as cornstarch that’s used as a thickener. This from the Splenda site: “SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener Minis do not contain any corn-derived ingredients and are a good option for people with corn allergies.”
Liquid stevia shouldn’t have any corn unlike powdered which can use corn cellulose as filler.
Wow, i’ll be checking that out, for sure. I thought that Splenda was made from sucralose, which was from corn. Of course, they could have changed that due to corn prices and protests from consumers. You would think that liquid Stevia was ok for me for the reasons that you have stated, No matter how many differerent brands I’ve purchased, I feel as though my insides are on fire. First, I thought that it was the flavored kind, but it is the plain kind, too. I have found that like gluten, manufacturers can claim something is corn free if it is under so many parts per million. I think one of the sweeteners was made by NOW, who have said that they use corn. Being able to use Spenda would make a huge difference in my life.
I stil have to confirm that what they call “sugar” is not “corn sugar,” and is truly cane sugar, but dextrose and malto-dextrin are corn products. I had someone send to India for dextrose that wasn’t corn derived to take a glucose tolerance test. The minis are worth a try.
Great, I’ll try Truvia, I have seen that in the my grocery store. I thought it had dextrose in it but now I see that it doesn’t.
Aweome, Gerri, thanks!! I’m going to get some Truvia and I’ll order FiberFit as well. Can’t wait to try your pizza recipe!!
I’m happy to see Truvia removed dextrose. Erythritol is more expensive than dextrose, so suprising. I found a conversion chart on-line for Fiberfit. Very helpful for sugar equivalents. Must be on the FiberFit site.
Let me know what you think of the pizza recipe. You may need to add more water than I did. I’m still tweaking it. Someone asked if there was any coconut flavor from the coconut flour. There’s not.