Hi, there.
Eric Bakker.
The question today is, are xylitol, sorbitol, and other sugar alcohols safe replacements
for sugar?
A question I frequently get asked, and I think I may have completed some videos on this in
the past, so.I remember when xylitol came out years ago.
I bought some of it, particularly chewing gum I really enjoyed.
I don't chew gum anymore.
I think it's really bad for your health to chew gum, stuff like this, repetitively.
It gives the gut the signal that food's coming, but it doesn't.But xylitol is an interesting
one.
So, xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol, we call these polyols, or sugar alcohols, and they're
commonly found in fruits.
They're found in barks of trees, they're found in vegetables.
They tend to be some digestible, some are partly digestible, some indigestible.Some
of them are fog maps, so you've got to be careful with the gum.
I do know many patients over the years who have bought bags of xylitol thinking it was
greater to have.
One lady in particular, adamant that it didn't cause her any problems, so she was having
heaps of it every day.So, studies have certainly shown no sort of serious effects of these
products, even one research paper I looked at where people are consuming like three,
four ounces of xylitol a day for two years.
Apart from a bit of gastric distress, a bit of diarrhea or bloating or gas, they didn't
really have many problems with it.Why I don't like these sugars so much, or any of these
sugars, in my opinion, is because they get a person hooked on a sweet taste.
The only sweetening agents I would use in my house, really, would be honey from my own
bee hives, or pure maple syrup.
Those two things, and even then, in moderation.Honey, I will use probably more so in wintertime
in my tea, I want coffee, and I do use honey sometimes for cooking or basting some nice
lamb roasts, things like that, but it's not a great idea to get hooked on sweet foods.
It really isn't.
It's quite addictive.
It's going to disrupt the gut.
It's only going to cause problems down the track.There's definitely some link in some
research I've seen with the sugar alcohols, the polyols, could potentially be pushing
people into more of placebo state, because once you get used to eating these kind of
sweet things, you want more and more of them, and oftentimes you'll get confused and start
putting other sugars into your diet, as well.So, best not to get into the sweet habit too much.
Once you get used to bitter or sour things, like I have, like lemon, for example, and
lime, also [inaudible], you really get to enjoy sour foods quite a lot, and it'll keep
sweet to a minimum.
You'll still enjoy sweet, but not as much.So once sweet becomes your overriding, predominant
thing in your tastebuds, you'll want a lot of it.
And that could end up causing you all kinds of digestive problems.
So, are they safe replacements?
Well, I think they are, and these sorts of sugars are certainly safer than the artificial
sweeteners that are widely researched and shown to be linked with many different problems,
with the brain function, for example.
So, I certainly endorse xylitol and stevia, for example, as kind of natural sugars.
There's very robust evidence that xylitol has a great effect on stopping streptococcus
mutans, or the plaque formation on teeth.
In fact, dental care ease drops right off even with mothers chewing xylitol gum before
they give birth to their baby, during the pregnancy, so.But as I say, I don't think
gum chewing is a great idea.
You're just chewing, chewing, you're producing lots of saliva, you're giving the gut the
wrong kinds of signals.
But for some people, it may suit them, but it doesn't suit me.Try not to get used to
anything really sweet in life.
That way, you haven't got any predominant strong desire for sugar, salt, or sour, are
the main kind of tastes.
You're going to enjoy your food a lot more if you don't have this incessant need always
to have something sweet in your life.And if you do want something sweet, like me, have
berries.
Berries are quite sweet to eat, you know.
We've got raspberries coming back on the vines again in fall, in autumn time.
We've got raspberries back for the second time.
We're still got a ton of blueberries out there, plus all the fruits.
We've got so many stone fruits we're growing.
We've got peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots.
We've got beautiful, sweet, juicy pears.
All these sugars in these foods are phenomenal, and the less man made stuff you eat, and the
more natural sugar you eat, I think the more you're going to enjoy the texture, smell,
and taste of the fruit.My sense of smell's improved tremendously over the past few years,
and it's a real delight to go up to smell a stone fruit.
It's a very enjoyable part of eating that food, is the sense of smelling that food,
too.So, remember, food's not just about sweet.
It's about enjoying that food for other reasons, as well.
So, that gives you a bit of an insight into these kind of sugars.
I think they're okay, but don't overdo it.
Thanks for tuning in.