@Rachox,
@searley It's important to note here that you can't just subtract the polyols from the carbs and that your body
can process them to varying degrees.
The polyols all behave differently, for example:
Maltitol produces large amounts of glucose in the body and has a widely quoted GI of 35-52 depending on the form, vs 65 for sucrose. It produces 2-2.5 calories/g so presumably half or more of it is converted to glucose. But given that it's only 90% as sweet as sucrose the end result is that it's not a great deal better than table sugar so it seems a bit pointless to me.
Xylitol has a low GI of 7 but still produces 2.4 calories/g meaning, I think, that it mostly converts to glucose but very slowly.
Isomalt has an even lower GI of 2 and produces about 2 calories/g, so again very slow conversion.
Erythritol produces no calories at all and would be a perfect sweetener but there is some rather alarming research out there suggesting it may be quite dangerous. It has the nasty property that it is readily absorbed straight into the bloodstream which, given the large quantities used, I find quite alarming.
Another troubling thing with the polyols is that they are widely used to bulk out the non-nutritive sweeteners such as Stevia. So if you buy a bag of Stevia sweetener you're actually buying a bag of erythritol with added Stevia. Chocolate advertised as sweetened with Stevia is often full of maltitol.
After diagnosis as I started to read research I quite quickly eliminated products containing either maltitol (almost useless) or erythritol (possibly dangerous). That does, however, leave things like boiled sweets made with isomalt. And of course, the non-nutritive sweeteners like sucralose.
Sorry for the essay, but I think it's quite an important subject for a lot of people and there's a lot of misinformation out there. The subject of artificial sweeteners could almost do with a section of its own in the forum to hear other people's experiences and opinions.
no judgement here, we all do things differently, I’d rather just smash up a couple of strawberries with a bit of monk fruit sweetener & a few chia seeds & chopped walnuts
