Allulose! Why isn’t it more popular? Tastes almost exactly like refined white cane sugar, caramelizes like sugar, yet has almost no calories and doesn’t make blood sugar spike. Just had some hot chocolate made with it and I’d give you $5 if you could tell it from regular sugar.
Until last year I hadn’t heard of allulose. Through the course of the year I started trying some new sugar free products. As usual most of them were a disappointment but I noticed a trend. The ones that I enjoyed and actually satisfied my occasional sugar craving contained allulose.
Allulose is great. I can’t stand the other ones (omg monkfruit is the worst) but allulose tastes pretty spot on, very little strangeness.
I like that it dissolves more easily than sugar in cold or room temperature liquids. I’d recommend to start slowly with it since it made me a bit farty initially.
I wonder where can I buy it? I have been doing the rounds experimenting with artificial sweeteners and it's actually very interesting seeing how different they are.
I bought a big bag on Amazon and really like it. This is the one I got (not an affiliate link, copied from the Amazon iPhone app) https://a.co/d/2w8I9py
There was an incredible post on HN a couple years ago about a guy who would test experimental sweeteners and one of them left his mouth tasting sweet for several months. I tried to find it in the past but never could.
Was it his mouth or his kitchen? I remember a post about someone who ordered a sweetener from some Chinese industrial supplier and accidentally spilled/destroyed the packaging in his kitchen, making everything cooked there taste sweet for a long time.
At an old job I was responsible for blending custom alcoholic drinks before we sent it to bottling. One required stevia which when you opened the bag it came in would float into the air everywhere (it’s a super fine powder) and being young and stupid we didn’t wear any masks or anything. For the next couple days you’d have a constant taste of it in your mouth / nose that reminded me of sweetarts candy.
> I have a slight fascination with sweeteners. About five years ago I imported a kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory in Shanghai. It was claimed to be 10,000-12,000 times sweeter than sugar. It's a white powder and came in a metal can with a crimped lid and typically plain chemical labeling. Supposedly it is FDA-approved and a distant derivative of aspartame.
US customs held it for two weeks before sending it on to Colorado with no explanation. When received, the box was covered in "inspected" tape and they had put the canister in a clear plastic bag. The crimped lid looked like a rottweiler chewed it open and white powder was all over the inside of the bag. I unwisely opened this in my kitchen with no respirator as advised by the MSDS which I read after the fact (I am not a smart man).
Despite careful handling of the bag, it is so fine in composition that a small cloud of powder erupted in front of me and a hazy layer of the stuff settled over the kitchen. Eyes burning and some mild choking from inhaling the cloud, I instantly marveled at how unbelievably sweet the air tasted, and it was delicious. For several hours I could still taste it on my lips. The poor customs inspector will have had a lasting memory of that container I'm pretty sure.
Even after a thorough wipe-down, to this day I encounter items in my kitchen with visually imperceptible amounts of residue. After touching it and getting even microscopic quantities of the stuff on a utensil or cup, bowl, plate, whatever, it adds an intense element of sweetness to the food being prepared, sometimes to our delight. I still have more than 900g even after giving away multiple baggies to friends and family (with proper safety precautions).
We have been hooked on it since that first encounter. I keep a 100mL bottle of solution in the fridge which is used to fill smaller dropper bottles. I've prepared that 100mL bottle three times over five years, and that works out to about 12g of personal (somewhat heavy) usage for two people in that time. Probably nowhere near the LD50.
I carry a tiny 30mL dropper bottle of the solution for sweetening the nasty office coffee and anything else as appropriate. Four drops to a normal cup of coffee. We sweeten home-carbonated beverages, oatmeal, baked goods (it is heat stable), use it in marinades, and countless other applications.
I don't know if it's safe. The actual quantity used is so incredibly tiny that it seems irrelevant. I'd sweeten my coffee with polonium-210 if it could be done in Neotame-like quantities. Between this, a salt shaker loaded with MSG and a Darwin fish on my car, I'm doomed anyway.
IMO, stevia can have a superior flavor profile to sugar for certain specific use cases. I really like it in ice teas because the sweetness comes on slow and that makes the drink seem more refreshing. Also, I can't taste any aftertaste because the tea leaves themselves produce a mild, pleasant bitter aftertaste which is conveniently paired with the longer-lasting sweetness of stevia.
That said I can see why stevia would not work for Coca Cola because you don't want the underlying bitterness of caffeine to hit you first without any sweetness. Coke needs to hit you fast. The thing about coke is that it's all about the first sip. It's as much about flavor as it is about freshness. The first sip must overwhelm your senses and energize you.
With ice teas, on the other hand, the flavors don't have to come on straight away because you're looking for freshness first and foremost. I think the pleasantness of it is mostly about cooling and soothing. You don't want it to hit you too fast; so a slow-onset flavor profile works better.
My mind is kind of blown reading this entire thread. I've always thought stevia tasted like bitter ass, not a redeeming flavor in the entire profile, ruins every food or beverage it's in, etc. I've never met anyone personally who likes it, but it turns out a bunch of nerds on the Internet do!
I think that's mostly where I've had it, yeah, but I know I've had some desserts that used it, and it's all I can taste. I wonder if it's anything like cilantro, where it tastes inedible to some people and delicious to others... Or if it tastes the same to everyone and I'm just not a fan
> That said I can see why stevia would not work for Coca Cola because you don't want the underlying bitterness of caffeine to hit you first without any sweetness.
There was a short-lived product called coca cola life, with a green label that I first saw in 2015 that was sweetened with stevia alongside sugar. I never tried it.
I discovered that it's better to avoid sweeteners completely and consume sugars in small amounts. Both seem to be bad for the body but differently. Sweeteners make me hungry. Sugars make me high then low. After a few years of low sweetness I started to find milk sweet. I can drink coffee without sugar because milk by itself tastes sweet enough (lactose). I completely stopped with soft drinks and dilute juices with the same to double the amount of water or just drink plain water.
Does anyone know if there are any issues with sugar alcohols (like maltitol/sorbitol etc)? I see them in medical syrups at times.
Bonus fun fact related to the regulation of such sweeteners: even though the EU is generally considered more "strict", the sweetener cylamate is banned in the US while you can buy it at a European Lidl/Aldi (which is also the source of my sweetener bottle.)
Also potential disruption of gut biota, since some 'bad' bacteria can consume sugar alcohols.
A lot of my problems started around the same time I started binge chewing gum, but that was not the only factor in play so who knows what really happened. I started binge chewing gum because job stress was starting to give me TMJ.
Anecdotal, but they mess with my stomach, even in small amounts. I can tell when I’ve accidentally eaten a food with sugar alcohols because I’ll get an unpleasant gurgling soon after.
I may get downvoted for this, but wouldn’t a high sucrose and high carbohydrate diet improve insulin resistance? If you minimize beta oxidation, then in theory, your body will adapt to primarily utilizing glycolysis for energy. The Randle cycle shows that poor glucose metabolism leads to preference of beta oxidation.
I'm a type 1 since 1982, went on 'human insulin' Regulal and NPH. I quickly was on a 3,000 plus calorie diet. I never altered it besides moving two of my three snacks into meals. I consume about 60% carbohydrates, I do about 30% fat. So I consume fresh brewed Yerba Mate with oolong added. Both mild and high in thenine. I also take melatonin. My insulin use is low for by body weight. Interesting that not avoiding sugar could be ok with a balanced diet and actually help the insulin be less oxidative.
I asked Claude 3 Opus about this, here is its response:
It's an interesting theory, but the relationship between diet and insulin resistance is more complex. Here's a breakdown:
The Randle Cycle:
The Randle Cycle, also known as the glucose-fatty acid cycle, suggests that high availability of fatty acids for beta-oxidation can inhibit glucose utilization.
This is because the products of fatty acid metabolism (acetyl-CoA and NADH) directly inhibit key enzymes involved in glucose metabolism, such as pyruvate dehydrogenase and phosphofructokinase.
High Sucrose and Carbohydrate Diet:
A diet high in sucrose and carbohydrates can lead to increased blood glucose levels, which in turn stimulates insulin secretion.
Chronically elevated insulin levels can lead to insulin resistance over time, as cells become less responsive to the effects of insulin.
Adapting to Glycolysis:
While minimizing beta-oxidation and relying primarily on glycolysis for energy might seem like a way to improve glucose metabolism, it's not that simple.
Excess glucose, if not utilized by cells or stored as glycogen, can be converted to fatty acids through de novo lipogenesis, contributing to increased fat storage and potential insulin resistance.
Insulin Resistance and Glucose Metabolism:
Insulin resistance is characterized by impaired glucose uptake and utilization by cells, leading to high blood glucose levels.
Poor glucose metabolism can indeed lead to a preference for beta-oxidation, as suggested by the Randle Cycle. However, this is a consequence of insulin resistance rather than a cause.
In conclusion, while the theory of adapting to glycolysis by minimizing beta-oxidation is interesting, a high sucrose and carbohydrate diet is more likely to contribute to insulin resistance rather than improve it. Insulin resistance is a complex metabolic disorder influenced by various factors, including diet, physical activity, and genetics.
The best thing I ever did for my health, fat %, inflammation that caused all sorts of issues like brain fog and skin issues, etc was to completely void sugar from my life. It took awhile to get used to drinking black coffee and I drank 2 liters of mountain dew my entire teenage years which turned to water but years later I cant touch anything sweet it absolutely disgusts me.
edit: Not completely, I don't 0 sugar, just don't add it to anything.
Cut processed foods and soda and canned arnold palmers, eat more fruits (which should be basically your only source of simple sugars) and definitely more vegetables, and get more exercise. Especially if there's a family history of diabetes!
Probably not productive to throw out sound advice just because other strategies also seem to be needed.
Those are all health-positive choices that make for good advice, obesity epidemic or not. There's nothing wrong with sharing them and it doesn't hurt anyone to hear them, even if for the thousandth time. And you have no evidence that spreading such advice hasn't helped people, just that many people may still need other support as well.
> Probably not productive to throw out sound advice just because other strategies also seem to be needed.
I'm not sure how you got the idea I think we should abandon public health advice on healthy eating. My previous comment is intended to point out that telling people to eat healithy doesn't work, and therefore we need artificial sweeteners because asking people to give up their favorite foods clearly isn't working.
I searched for "dietary guideline adherence rates" and it turned up multiple studies. I looked at a few and it's not clear how they support your argument. Stop being lazy and expect the reader to do research and argumentation for your own comment. Link to the studies and explain why they support your argument.
Well now wait a second. You're making a claim about adherence because substantial adherence is critical to your claim. If you can't even find that out, then why are you making the claim?
>Well now wait a second. You're making a claim about adherence because substantial adherence is critical to your claim.
If you read my original comment more carefully, you'll see it doesn't make any claims about adherence rates. All it points out is that we've been telling people to eat healthy but people have only gotten fatter. The studies I found show adherence rates are poor and are correlated with positive health outcomes, so I'm not seeing the contradiction you're implying exists. So again, stop getting your opponent to write your arguments and do your research for you, and explicitly lay them out in your comments.
How is this related to the advice of "just say no to [insert harmful but palatable food]" not working for the past few decades? Moreover, even if you believe PUFA/seed oils are toxic, surely it's better to not consume sugar (and all the associated calories/insulin spikes) in the first place?
Because people keep failing to lose weight following it.
It's advice that doesn't generate any measure of success or effectiveness, and is likely to make you feel worse and thus regress: the difficulty of it is so common that it's a Hollywood trope to show someone over-eating or eating ice cream on a couch to say "this person is stressed".
Advice which doesn't work, or can't be adhered to, is bad advice. "You shouldn't eat X" is always coming from someone who doesn't want or like X in the first place. They have no investment in it, it's the easiest thing in the world for them to say because they don't want it to start with.
Oh, I definitely like treats, and grew up drinking soda. As well as cream and sugar in coffee, and tons of other little places sugar sneaks into. Fruit juices, even the healthy 100% orange juice, not from concentrate.
It took years and years to train myself out of eating elevated levels of sugars every day. Now that I’ve done that hard work, yes, I can’t tolerate drinking a large cup of soda. I will drink a small, like 4-8 oz amount, as a treat on extreme occasion, like some of the special sodas the local breweries make around the holidays. Even then I feel it though.
But I also just don’t buy the stuff. A lot easier to say no when it’s not staring you in the face day in and day out at home. Out of sight, out of mind.
Getting to the point where you don’t want it anymore is kind of the point.
Right but can you see the difference in what you just posted, versus the generic advice that was originally given?
Like this right here:
> But I also just don’t buy the stuff. A lot easier to say no when it’s not staring you in the face day in and day out at home. Out of sight, out of mind.
This is actionable, useful advice - or at least part of it.
It's still missing a lot of other detail though - i.e. orange juice, in fact all fruit juices, have never been "healthy" - they're pure sugar from fruit, concentrated - and don't provide any long lasting satiation. The problem isn't the juice, the problem is people will eat 500 calories, then add 130 calories of juice on top of that but think "well juice is healthy".
The biggest single problem is the sheer amount of calories you can eat without thinking about it when they're available, and that people go to extraordinary lengths to not find this out (I've had some incredible arguments of people insisting that it must be simply impossible to have an usable estimate of calories in home cooking, despite them listing out recipes with specific weights).
The average American in the 50s consumed 100g of sucrose per day. Where was the obesity then? Where was the diabetes? They consumed close to 4000 kcal daily, without going to the gym.
Most men had sedentary, office jobs. It is ridiculous to completely eliminate micro or macronutrients in your life. Your body would not have the ability to convert glucose into ATP if you weren’t supposed to consume sucrose.
Source on the average American consuming 200% of their RDV of sugar and kcal in the 50s? Because the sources I find fall in the low 2000 range for US per capita kcal consumption in the mid 20th century to the mid 2000s in the 21st century [0] and high 2000s average kcal consumption in 60’s to the mid 3000s by 2017 [1], which is an alarming amount if that’s a sedentary person.
And regardless of the validity of your claim, we know the effects of a diet like that. The human body did not evolve with such a diet available, nor with the aisles of cereals, chips, cookies, cakes and sodas like have been available in the last 50ish years in stores.
Ritz crackers ingredients by order of amount: flour, palm oil, sugar… Crackers do not need sugar, these aren’t really crackers. We’re feeding ourselves shit.
The effects of poor diet compound over generations as well. Both in terms of: someone with a poor diet is likely to teach their children poorly, who could go on to make worse decisions earlier in their life and thus over a longer amount of absolute time, and also could damage the DNA and chromosomes they’re passing along [2], and then again lead to poor embryonic and fetal development [3].
Where was the diabetes? It was walking behind us all along [4].
This “there must not be any free lunch” intuition is regularly
defeated across history. It takes for granted the fact that we are standing on top of thousands of free lunches.
The wheels of insulin reaction starts when you taste sweets, (both in your mouth and receptors in the intestines), not when the sugar hits your bloodstream.
Your body is affected by the experience of sweet, not just the fact of sugar.
> The wheels of insulin reaction starts when you taste sweets,
That's completely nonsense. Insulin is produced in the pancreas, in reaction to your blood glucose levels, and has nothing to do with your taste buds.
Source: I use a Dexcom G7 CGM. I know exactly what creates a glucose spike, and most truly sugar-free / carbs free foods (e.g. sugarfree Jell-O) cause 0 spike.
The pancreas is part of the endocrine system and blood sugar is far from the only signalling pathway. I'm not sure why you would think I was suggesting a 'spike' in blood sugar from this. Wouldn't it be a reduction?
