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Comment by clusterhacks | Hacker News Reader

I just skimmed this study but other RCTs say no to your first question:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7103435/#:~:tex....

You can go down a rabbit hole with the references in this paper - I think a generally interested layperson is definitely capable of understanding papers like this. My instinct is that the hardest to understand papers are often actually so special-area related that those papers don't contain useful information except for researchers. So you can skip them.

Don't know about the second question and suspect no one else does either.

As an aside - how did you manage that transition to stevia? I despise non-sugar sweeteners and can detect them in very small amounts. For "reasons" I don't eat meat and I supplement protein intake with whey. If it wasn't for a small number of high-quality unflavored (and thus lacking artificial sweeteners) whey isolates I would probably re-introduce meat into my diet.

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Not OP but what did the trick for me was a combination of the following sweeteners, listed from largest to least amount:

- erythritol (~0 calories, ~2/3s as sweet as sugar),

- xylitol (~60% of sugar calories, improves oral biome, inhibits enamel demineralization),

- stevia or sucralose for added sweetness.

After experimenting with different ratios I now rarely crave sugar at all anymore.

Another thing to consider is that the initial dopamine response to sweeteners seems to generally be lower than with sugar, but there are indications that this gap may lessen with continued use over a matter of weeks (at least in mice in a small number of studies). Andrew Huberman from Stanford brought it up in a recent episode about nutrition: https://hubermanlab.com/how-foods-and-nutrients-control-our-...

I'd like to add monk fruit to that list. Usually you wanna combine: (monk fruit OR stevia) + (erythritol OR xylitol) to get a very nice flavor. Stevia or monk fruit on their own are "flat" in sweetness but very strong. The xylitol or erythritol gives some fullness, or body.

PSA: xylitol is extremely toxic for dogs.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20473849/

Also it can give some people gastric problems. I don’t have an issue but know people who do.

Gastric problems to me, in other words are, a problem for my intestinal microbiome which my health depends on.

Thank you for the answers. I didn't find it difficult to transition to stevia. At first, it had a different taste from sugar (not unpleasant, much sweeter) but I got used to the taste. Some people find stevia has a bitter aftertaste. Lots of stevia products are a mixture of stevia and erythritol (like 'Truvia') to mask any bitter aftertaste. I use less stevia than sugar (about half of the sugar amount).

Are you using stevia in all places you would use sugar?

Are there any things/situations you can't use stevia for?

Yes, I have replaced sugar completely with stevia. I have tried different stevia brands and found them fairly similar - they are a mixture of stevia blends with erythritol.

I found one stevia brand with a 1:8 ratio (1g of stevia = 8g of Sugar i.e. 1:8 ratio). Found that too sweet for me and had a bitter aftertaste. I usually buy stevia with a 1:2 ratio (i.e. 1g of stevia = 2g of Sugar).

I use stevia in tea and coffee. Have also used stevia successfully to make cakes, cookies, and ice cream.

> Are there any things/situations you can't use stevia for?

Unrefined ground dried stevia leaf can be quite bitter depending on what it is mixed into. I find it works well in baked goods like cinnamon rolls and corn bread, but makes berry smoothies too bitter to drink.

The refined version is much less bitter-- e.g., it works in berry smoothies (but, there is a very noticeable fake sugar taste/after taste with smoothies).

In either case, mixing with a little regular sugar (naturally occurring sugar content in e.g., berry smoothies is sufficient), generally improves the favor.

And, stevia does not caramelize like sugar when cooked. E.g., replacing most of the sugar in pancake/waffle batter will result in pancakes/waffles that do not brown when cooked.

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