Sweeteners are a bit of a minefield - for several reasons:
- the carbs listed can be very misleading. Not all carbs are absorbed and used by the body, and this is the case for some of the sweeteners available. I use Erythritol which is white, granular and looks like sugar (in baking and hot drinks), but it has absolutely NO IMPACT on my digestive tract and blood glucose. It is also more 'natural' than some of the others. Of course, this also makes it one of the most expensive!
- other sweeteners have been demonstrated in studies to raise blood glucose, cause digestive upset and other reactions. But the tolerance for them varies hugely across the population. Always best to check your own reaction using your meter. There are people on here who use sweeteners that give me headaches and digestive upsets, so it is a case of try them and see.
- plus there is another factor which plays a surprisingly large part. The taste. As in the sweet tooth. I mean, sugar is universally known to be a problem for people with glucose intolerance. Generally speaking, the more we eat, the higher our blood glucose goes. But the hidden problem there is that the sweeter we have our food, the sweeter we like it, because we are used to it as an acquired taste. Cutting out sugar is a no-brainer with type 2 diabetes. Although the extent to which we do it is a personal choice. But if we replace that sugar with things that are equally sweet, then our body and our taste buds stay stuck in the sugar-craving and we miss our sugar fix. On the other hand if we gently transition down to less sweet and even less sweet, then our tastes adjust.
There was a point where I thought I would have to give up chocolate, because I only liked milk chocolate. It took a while but now I think milk chocolate is disgustingly sickly, cloying and lacking in chocolateyness. 70% cocoa solids and upwards are now The Business. - just a matter of gradually re-training my taste buds.
And I must admit that I enjoy my food more now than I used to. I think the sweetness used to mask half the flavour.