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  1. Hi, just found your website. Thanks for all the great looking recipes. I, too, like to eat natural foods. I’ve lost 60 pounds low carbing in the last year. I do have a question for you about erythritol. What is it and how is it different from xylitol, which is the sweetener I’ve been using, which comes from the birch tree. Have you used xylitol in any of your recipes and have they turned out ok? Again, thanks so much I love your website!

    • Hi Kim! Congratulations on your remarkable weight loss!

      Erythritol is also a sugar alcohol, like xylitol. The texture is very much similar to xylitol. However, erythritol differs from xylitol in many ways. Usually it’s tolerated much better than xylitol, so it doesn’t upset stomach that easily. It doesn’t have any effective carbs, and usually it doesn’t have any effect on blood sugar levels. It’s also great for teeth since it doesn’t promote tooth decay. Some studies show that it’s even better for teeth than xylitol.

      Erythritol is a very natural sweetener. It occurs naturally for example in some fruits and fermented foods. Here is a Wikipedia article on erythritol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol

      I buy my erythritol from iHerb (http://www.iherb.com/Now-Foods-Erythritol-100-Pure-Natural-Sweetener-1-lb-454-g/579?at=0&rcode=IRA341) since I’ve found it very cheap there.

      I haven’t used xylitol for a very long time after finding erythritol and stevia. However, I expect that my recipes work also with xylitol. Xylitol is slightly sweeter than erythritol, so you might want to adjust the amount of xylitol to your liking. You can try to substitute granulated xylitol for erythritol crystals, and powdered xylitol for powdered erythritol. If you try, please let me know how it turned out!

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