Which Sweetener is Right for You?

The first thing that everyone knows walking into a ketogenic diet is that they'll need to give up sugar. If you're someone like me who really enjoys cake, that might be the death knell for the whole idea. We all know we eat too much sugar, but when you're addicted, you can't find an easy way to give it up.

There are plenty of people out there that will say "you just have to go cold turkey," and if that works for them, then I'm thrilled. However, I know myself, and I knew that if I could have cookies, I'd stay low carb longer.

If that's the boat you're in, then that's why I'm writing these recipes down. The great thing is that, in the modern age, there are a ton of options for your keto-friendly sweets.

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Natural Sweeteners Chemical Sweeteners Sugar Alcohols

Natural Sweeteners

Natural sweeteners are, of course, derived from plants that grow in the wild. They're often refined down to concentrate their sweetness so that they can be used as a sugar alternative. The best part about natural sweeteners is that they do come from a natural source, but that often is reflected in their price.

Stevia

Stevia is refined from the leaves of the Brazilian plant Stevia rebaudiana. It's been used by the Guaraní peoples for over 1500 years, and they call it

ka'a he'ê ("sweet herb"). When refined, the steviol glycosides (active sweetening chemicals) can be up to 150 times as sweet as sugar. Therefore, pure stevia isn't often available.

Brands that use stevia for baking sweeteners will often include a conversion chart to show what amount of their product is equal to a measure of sugar, but a good rule of thumb is that 1 tsp of sugar is equal to ⅛ tsp of stevia.

Stevia has been shown to have a significantly smaller impact on blood sugar levels than sucrose¹ and a study from Brazil from 1986 showed that regular use of Stevia may improve glucose tolerance over time².

Monk Fruit

Monk fruit is a small, round fruit native to China. To make a sweetener out of it, its skin and seeds are removed, the fruit is juiced, and the juice is reduced. Unlike most fruits, which are high in fructose and sucrose, the monkfruit reduction has 0 calories and no measurable carbohydrates

The main compound, called mogroside, is not absorbed in the upper gastrointestinal tract, and the glucose molecules that are absorbed in the colon are not used as energy³. Concentrated monk fruit is 150-200 times as sweet as sugar, so it's usually combined with other ingredients to make measuring easier (I often see it with erythritol).

Early research shows a lower glucose response from beverages containing monk fruit than those containing table sugar⁴.

Yacón Syrup

Yacón Syrup is derived from the yacón plant (obviously) - tuberous plant native to various regions of South America. This particular natural sweetener does have sugar in it, but it's far less than other sources that create syrup.

Most of the sweetening agents of the yacón root are fructooligosaccharides (FOS), which have no impact on blood glucose and are not stored as energy by the body, but there is still fructose in the root⁵.

However, the ratio of FOS to fructose can be altered by farming and harvesting techniques. Botanists in New Zealand have found ways to maximize the FOS ratio, minimizing fructose⁶.

Chemical Sweeteners

Chemical sweeteners are developed in a lab, either from altering sugar's composition or from a purely chemical reaction. Several of them were developed by accident, but the

Sucralose

Sucralose is actually the closest to natural sugar of any of the sweeteners on this list. The chemists who developed sucralose replaced a single hydrogen atom on the sucrose molecule with a chlorine atom which means the body can't break it down into energy.

Though sucralose itself has been shown to have no impact on insulin levels⁷, brand names such as Splenda use ingredients that do have an impact on blood glucose⁸. Therefore, if you can get your hands on pure sucralose (320-1000x as sweet as sugar), it's fully keto-friendly, but packaged brands can often knock you out of ketosis.

Aspartame

Aspartame is possibly has the widest use of any of the sweeteners in this list. It's also one of the most controversial. Developed in the 1960s, it's been widely used in "diet" foods since the 1980s. It's about 200x sweeter than sugar, so very small amounts can sweeten items quite a lot.

However, there are some who claim that aspartame causes memory loss and cancer. There are so many studies that disprove this that I can't list them all. Some research shows that there is no change in peak insulin levels for diabetics given aspartame, but that the insulin response was markedly higher in the aspartame trials than the saccharin trials⁹.

Saccharin

Saccharin is another long-used, yet controversial sweetener. It was first developed in the 1870s and has been used in foods since its discovery. Like most of the other sweeteners here, it has no caloric value.

There have been studies in mice that showed that saccharin caused bladder cancer; however, many proponents claim that this was part of a mechanism that humans don't have, and they say that this disputes the findings¹⁰.

Some research shows that there is no change in peak insulin levels for diabetics given saccharin, but that the insulin response was markedly lower in the saccharin trials than the aspartame trials⁹.

Sugar Alcohols

Sugar alcohols or polyls occur naturally in plant products and are easily converted to glucose by the body. Therefore, they have little to no insulin response in the body. That means that though they have more caloric value than the previous sweeteners, they have less impact on the body's insulin levels.

Erythritol

Erythritol occurs naturally in fermented fruits, and has the lowest caloric impact of the sugar alcohols. However, it's only about 70% as sweet as sugar, so it's often combined with a much sweeter sweetener such as monk fruit.

Erythritol has almost no impact on digestive health and studies show there is no impact on insulin levels¹¹. Other studies indicate that regular usage can lower blood pressure over time¹².

Malitol

Malitol is a byproduct of corn syrup fermentation. It has half the calories of regular sugar and reacts to heat almost exactly the same as real sugar. You can make caramels, hard candies, and syrups using malitol.

It's only about 75% as sweet as sugar, so most of its uses require more of it than regular sugar. However, unlike most of the others on this list, it does register pretty high on the glycemic index¹³. That means that, while it's low in calories, it can absolutely kick you right out of ketosis.

Xylitol

Xylitol is produced in several fruits, vegetables, and gourds. It has about 40% as many calories as table sugar, but is only 5% less sweet than it. It has negligible impact on insulin levels, so it won't kick you out of ketosis.

The biggest problem with xylitol is that it's incredibly toxic to dogs. Unlike humans, whose bodies ignore xylitol and don't produce any insulin, dogs' bodies believe they have consumed large amounts of glucose which causes their insulin production to go into overdrive¹⁴. This means they can go into hypoglycaemic shock and die.

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