I’ve got some monk fruit sweetener and it says that there are 4 grams carbs per serving yet it claims zero calories. The carbs are erythritol. If 4 grams of sugar had 16 calories, 1 gram of carb has 4 calories, why wouldn’t this monk fruit sweetener have the same calories as sugar?
In: Biology
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Semantics game.
Erythritol is an “alcohol sugar”, not a “saccharide” like sucrose (table sugar) or fructose (fruit sugar) . So in the food marketing and labeling world, “sugars” are only monosaccharides and disaccharides that would and in “-ose” at the end of their name, not the “alcohol sugars” that end in “-ol” like mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol etc. Collectively ,these alcohol sugars are called “polyols” and are essentially derived *from* sugars, but have an extra hydrogen atom added to them (either naturally or artificially). Because there is an “official” definition of Sugar as saccharides and these are not, they can use the words “Sugar free” on products that contain the polyols. But they ARE still carbohydrates, so if you are counting carbs, you have to count them, Polyols however don’t raise your blood sugar levels as much as saccharides do, and they don’t promote tooth decay.
A lot of people however cannot properly digest polyols, so be careful, they can cause “intestinal distress” (farting and explosive diarrhea…)
Artificial sweeteners tend to be many times sweeter than regular sugars. For example, aspertame is said to be 160 (one hundred and sixty) times sweeter than the same amount of sugar. So, theoretically, we need much less artificial sweetener in order to make foods have the same amount of sweetness. Because the amount of sweetener is so small, the amount of calories it contributes to the food is negligible, so companies will say it’s zero calories.
What brand of sweetener are you using, because monk fruit sweetener shouldn’t have any carbs, and certainly shouldn’t have that many carbs in a single serving (usually one teaspoon)?
One teaspoon of sugar is 4 grams, pure carbohydrates. If monk fruit sweetener is not sugar, then it shouldn’t have the same number of carbs, so there is some trickery going on with your product.
A common way to get around the labelling is to use primarily Erythritol, or sugar alcohol, along with the monk fruit extract (which is more for flavoring)
The erythritol isn’t digested into the body and passes in your stool, and has a lower gram/calorie ratio than regular sugar, so they can get away with putting zero calories on the label, as it provides fewer than one calorie per serving.
Your body is unable to digest erythritol. While the sugar itself does have calories your body can’t take advantage of them and it just passes through your body.
I’m allergic to fake sugars like aspartame, As well as ones such as stevia that are “all natural” ones. I can not have chewing gum due to this or diet beverages or anything saying sugarfree or natural sweetener. It doesn’t have really anything to do with this thread. It just is an annoying allergy to have. But I enjoyed the information I read here. 🤷🏻♀️
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