A guide to alternative sweetners

It really does feel as if every generation is confronted with a new assortment of sugar substitutes with which people experiment.

A few decades ago it was sucralose (Splenda) and before that saccharine (Sweet n’ Low) and aspartame (Equal).

I’m old enough to remember when Xylitol, one of a group of sugar alcohols (note the suffix “ol”) first appeared in Canada in the form of chewing gum. There was an almost immediate campaign decrying it as unsafe and those chewing gums disappeared from the market.

It turned out to be a fabrication of course and we can now once again buy xylitol sweetened gum. In fact, as Harvard Health shows, Xylitol is used to prevent tooth decay by destroying bad bacteria in the mouth.

Two other sugar alcohols in common use as substitutes are maltitol and the increasingly popular erythritol.

I had my own encounter with maltitol when I first lived in Vancouver and gorged on a bowl of ice cream late one night. My blissful night's sleep was urgently disrupted and it was then that I learned of maltitol’s ahem… purgative effects. I’ve not consumed it since. In fact all sugar alcohols can cause diarrhea and cramping but maltitol appears to be the most volatile.

Erythritol has gained ground in many applications especially since it’s been mixed with monk fruit, a fruit grown in Southeast Asia.

Monk fruit is said to be up to 250 times sweeter than sugar and in order to control that sweetness level it is mixed with erythritol. My take is a little different, and I suspect that monk fruit is added to erythritol in order to greenwash erythritols reputation. 

Erythritol is cheaper to manufacture and preliminary research raises concerns of heart events with prolonged use. Adding monk fruit gives this sugar replacement a healthier reputation and this is where labeling laws fail the consumer. There is simply no telling how much monk fruit relative to erythritol is in a package. 

Paul Dincer of Vancouver’s Koko Monk creates some of Canada’s finest chocolates and he also blends his own monk fruit extract with inulin (a prebiotic fibre) and allulose. He told me that he refuses to use the erythritol-monk fruit blend because these may contain as little as 1% monk fruit and like all sugar alcohols they eventually have negative consequences for the gut microbiome.

The blend pictured here shows a 1 to 1 sugar usage ratio and I have used it in baking. It does sweeten very well, but your baked goods will leave you with a strange cooling sensation in the mouth that I found unpleasant

Research up until now shows that only three sugar replacements have no effect on blood sugar levels: monk fruit, stevia and allulose. While they’re considered the safest for human health, those who’ve used stevia know that there’s a funny aftertaste that’s difficult to overcome.

Monk fruit is marketed as having no aftertaste but based on my usage, that’s not true at all. In fact it does have a little of that metallic effect you get from stevia, only much less at about a quarter of the amount.

A small bottle of Sweet Monk (pure monk fruit extract) contains 750 drops and costs $22 at Healthy Planet. Ten drops adequately sweetens a cup of coffee. If you are interested in trying this product, be warned that it sells out quickly and you need to grab it when you see it.

French biochemist Jessie Inchasupé (aka The Glucose Goddess) is seen here in a very worthwhile interview with British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett where she breaks down strategies for reducing sugar.

Allulose is the newest sugar replacement to make waves and I was delighted to learn that Vancouver’s chocolate alchemist Paul Dincer of Koko Monk, is now creating his own blend of allulose, inulin and monk fruit. 

I first met Paul in 2014 while living in Vancouver and we got on very well, sharing a common vocabulary around our experiences of smells and tastes. He’s of singular intelligence and I’m not surprised at all by the excellence of his products.

I’ve used his Keto sweetener in coffee and it’s the closest I’ve come to the taste of sugar. You’ll be glad to learn that he ships across Canada.

Sodas may be the single biggest contributor to a crisis in rising diabetes rates because a single can packs in as much as 42 grams of sugar in 355 ml. That’s an insane amount and it can be difficult to break the habit.

Luckily there are better-tasting alternatives to your average diet sodas and both Poppi (American) and Cove (Canadian) brands are available at Costco. 

Poppi does have some sugar at 5 grams (or less) per can and is also sweetened with the prebiotic inulin. Cove is sweetened with both erythritol and stevia and contains probiotics presumably to counteract any negative effects of the erythritol on your microbiome.

I do like both these products (very clean label) although after my first can of Cove I was reminded of the effects that sugar alcohols can have on your digestive system. Exercise caution. Don’t drink a can of this and then immediately get on a city bus.