Anyone who is dieting, or at least trying to watch what they eat, is familiar with the wide variety of sugar substitutes available in the marketplace today. However, most people remain mystified regarding the origin and safety issues attached to all these sugar substitutes. Worse yet, they have no idea which one to choose or if one is even better than another. Let's try to take away some of that mystery and pull back the veil to uncover the many options available.
The purpose of a sugar substitute is to sweeten like a sugar without delivering too much food energy, which can result in mild to severe insulin spike. With diabetes at epidemic proportions, cutting sugar intake has become a necessity in today's world.
The sugar substitutes with which people are most familiar are synthetic or "artificial" in nature. However, there are some that are natural, coming from Mother Nature, very much like sugar itself. Many of these sweeteners are concentrated and require less of the product to achieve the desired sweetness level. A few can be used across the board either to sweeten food or drink as well as for cooking. Others are tricky and vary greatly according to the type of sweetener. Some lose their composition or sweetness when heated and are therefore not recommended for use in baking.
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