Even though you’re dieting, it’s great to be able to have your cake and eat it too. To this end, chemists have developed a number of alternative sweeteners. Some of them, like saccharin and NutraSweet, you know; others, like xylitol, sorbitol, maltitol and lactitol, may be unfamiliar. The last two sweeteners, maltitol and lactitol, are what were used to sweeten your cake. This last grouping of four sweeteners is part of a class of sweeteners known as polyols.
They’re alcohol-free sugars derived from the alcohol molecule. They’ve been safely used for many years to sweeten calorie-controlled foods, especially commercially baked goods and candy. While you may think of sugar as table sugar (sucrose), fruit sugar (fructose) or milk sugar (lactose), there are also these polyol, alcohol-derived sugars.
Sucrose is considered the sugar by which all other sweeteners are compared in terms of sweetness. Xylitol is the sweetest of the polyols, with a sweetness that’s about the same as sucrose. The other polyols, like the maltitol and lactitol used in your cake, range from 0.4-0.8 times as sweet as table sugar.
While sugars like sucrose contain 4 calories per gram (15 calories per teaspoon), polyols like maltitol contain about half the calories. But simply replacing the sugar in cake or cookies with a reduced-calorie sweetener may not make a huge dent in the overall calories, since it doesn’t replace or reduce the calories in the flour or oil.
The biggest plus is that these sweeteners allow diabetics to enjoy cake or cookies and still keep their blood sugar under control.
Also, because these alternative sweeteners aren’t easily converted to acids by bacteria in your mouth, they won’t cause cavities. Sugar-free gums that contain xylitol or sorbitol may even reduce your risk of tooth decay by encouraging better saliva flow across the teeth.
The gas and bloating you’ve experienced after eating your cake is because of the gastrointestinal side effects of the maltitol and lactitol. These sweeteners are slowly and only partly absorbed from the digestive tract, and this can cause a laxative effect or gas. It’s really a lot like eating a high-fiber food such as bran cereal. NutraSweet and saccharin won’t cause this problem, but they’re not nearly as heat-stable as polyols are for baking purposes.
These polyols won’t actually hurt you, but they can be a cause of gas and diarrhea. This side effect is usually related to the quantity of consumption, and affects some worse than others. I’d suggest that you try cutting back on your portion size, and also avoid eating gas-producing foods like beans or high-fiber cereal.
If that doesn’t help, bake your own cake, using the heat-stable low-calorie sweetener Sunett. Sucralose is another heat-stable low-calorie sweetener, just approved safe by the FDA. Look for it within the next year.
– Knight RidderTribune
News Service
