Question: In products that use Equal/Nutrasweet as their sweetener, there is a sugar alcohol content. What other sugar substitutes have sugar alcohol amounts?Answer: No, that’s not quite right. Equal/Nutrasweet is a protein-derived sugar, and has no sugar alcohol content. I’m guessing you got the mistaken impression from looking at the label of a “sugar-free” food like dietetic cake, cookies, or candy. Those products use sweetening alternatives to sugar like xylitol, sorbitol, maltitol, or lactitol. While they’re derived from the alcohol molecule, they’re 100 percent alcohol-free.

Such sugar-free sweeteners are as different from alcohol as a drinking glass is from a handful of sand. Alcohol-free sugars have been used safely for many years to sweeten calorie-controlled foods, especially commercially baked goods and candy. While you may think of sugars as natural sweeteners derived from sugar cane or fruits, there are ways through chemistry to create other sugars.

Sucrose, or white cane sugar, is the staple against which all other sweeteners are compared. Xylitol, the sweetest of the alcohol-derived sugars, has about the same sweetness as sucrose. The other alcohol-derived sugars range from 0.4 to 0.8 times as sweet as table sugar.

While table sugar (sucrose) and fruit sugar (fructose) contain 15 calories per teaspoon, the alcohol-derived sweeteners contain about half the calories. But don’t be fooled: Cake and cookies that use these sweeteners still may be high in calories from the flour and oil.

The biggest “plus” of such sweeteners is that they allow diabetics to enjoy cookies or cake in moderation without causing huge spikes in the blood sugar. They also can help prevent cavities, since they’re not converted to acids by bacteria in the mouth.

Chewing sugar-free (xylitol or sorbitol sweeteners) gums like Trident or Carefree may cut your risk of cavities by increasing saliva flow across your teeth.

People who eat too much food or candy sweetened with an alcohol-derived sweetener may experience gas, bloating, or a diarrhea laxative effect. That’s because they’re slowly or only partially absorbed from the digestive tract. The more you eat, the more gas, bloating, or diarrhea you’ll get. Equal/Nutrasweet, saccharin, Splenda, and Truvia won’t cause this problem.

 

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