Artificial Sweetener - Erythritol

Diet and Nutrition
1

This is a little obscure but I think this stuff is badass. It’s an artificial sweetener. It’s similar to xylitol, but I have no experience with cooking with xylitol, and with erythritol I do and I can say I like it! They use it in gum, vitamin water 10 and available in bulk as examples. It’s (nearly) calorie free, tastes good, doesn’t upset my stomach. No downsides to it for me. I make a couple of recipes with it, and am looking to expand my use of it, although I wouldn’t suggest anyone use it heavily in amounts more than 10 grams or so, nor daily, just as a precaution against ill effects.

From a muscle building standpoint I wouldn’t think it would do much one way or the other, although i have flavored my anaconda shakes with it just for fun, and it worked pretty well when I included cool aid powder too.

This is cool: “Erythritol is a sweet antioxidant” Nutrition | Journal | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier

I’m on a diet right now, and although it’s a “diet friendly food” I’m being pretty strict right now for simplicity sake and not using it. When I’m off my diet, I’ll come up with some creative recipes and post pics if I remember.

Where to buy: online Amazon.com or at the grocery store. I picked up a bag called “Zsweet All Natural Zero Calorie Sweetener” and flavored some…

Fried Coconut Shrimp:
Ingredients:
teaspoon coconut oil
Unsweetened Medium Shredded Coconut to taste
handful or two of precooked medium-large shrimp
teaspoon of (Vietnamese) chili garlic sauce to taste http://store.indianfoodsco.com/Grocery/ProdDesc.CFM?itemid=CHCS210&Description=Chili%20Garlic%20Sauce&countryid=&countryname=&countryorderid=
ZSweet to taste
A shake or two of cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

Sorry no pics or stats, but it’s very low carb and high in protein depending on the amount of shrimp you throw in!

2

Google turns up a list of sugar alcohols and their calories per gram:

Erythritol really is about as close to zero cal as you can get.

My only experience is with packets of Truvia, the newish sweetener with both erythril and rebiana (a stevia extract). And while I like that it’s truly near zero cal, it doesn’t taste nearly as good as sugar. Or even splenda.

3

Why not just use just pure stevia extract. Its what I use to sweeten my tea. I also add it to my homemade salad dressing and in foods to add a little sweetness. Zero calorie periods and it’s not some lab concoction that god knows what it will do.

I get mine from traders joes because most stevia extracts have some kind of sugar derivative added to it and the only place I could find pure stevia was there.

just my .02

4

There’s a chick who does a ton of baking with erythritol (and stevia):

http://healthyindulgences.blogspot.com/

She waxes poetic a lot about the evils of carbohydrates and gluten, but a lot of her recipes are quite good. Her almond flour-based biscuits were nice.

I know that erythritol is one of the sugar alcohols that, unlike malitol, sorbitol, etc. absorbs easily in the digestive tract so it doesn’t produce the gastrointestinal distress that the others often cause. I’ve never tried baking with it.