A New Sweetener Has Joined the Ranks of Aspartame and Stevia
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I like that it dissolves more easily than sugar in cold or room temperature liquids. I’d recommend to start slowly with it since it made me a bit farty initially.
Sucralose is very potent, one knife tip sweetens 4l of water and the powder is very fine and tends to linger around. It's also very cheap.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36853090
> I have a slight fascination with sweeteners. About five years ago I imported a kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory in Shanghai. It was claimed to be 10,000-12,000 times sweeter than sugar. It's a white powder and came in a metal can with a crimped lid and typically plain chemical labeling. Supposedly it is FDA-approved and a distant derivative of aspartame. US customs held it for two weeks before sending it on to Colorado with no explanation. When received, the box was covered in "inspected" tape and they had put the canister in a clear plastic bag. The crimped lid looked like a rottweiler chewed it open and white powder was all over the inside of the bag. I unwisely opened this in my kitchen with no respirator as advised by the MSDS which I read after the fact (I am not a smart man).
Despite careful handling of the bag, it is so fine in composition that a small cloud of powder erupted in front of me and a hazy layer of the stuff settled over the kitchen. Eyes burning and some mild choking from inhaling the cloud, I instantly marveled at how unbelievably sweet the air tasted, and it was delicious. For several hours I could still taste it on my lips. The poor customs inspector will have had a lasting memory of that container I'm pretty sure.
Even after a thorough wipe-down, to this day I encounter items in my kitchen with visually imperceptible amounts of residue. After touching it and getting even microscopic quantities of the stuff on a utensil or cup, bowl, plate, whatever, it adds an intense element of sweetness to the food being prepared, sometimes to our delight. I still have more than 900g even after giving away multiple baggies to friends and family (with proper safety precautions).
We have been hooked on it since that first encounter. I keep a 100mL bottle of solution in the fridge which is used to fill smaller dropper bottles. I've prepared that 100mL bottle three times over five years, and that works out to about 12g of personal (somewhat heavy) usage for two people in that time. Probably nowhere near the LD50.
I carry a tiny 30mL dropper bottle of the solution for sweetening the nasty office coffee and anything else as appropriate. Four drops to a normal cup of coffee. We sweeten home-carbonated beverages, oatmeal, baked goods (it is heat stable), use it in marinades, and countless other applications.
I don't know if it's safe. The actual quantity used is so incredibly tiny that it seems irrelevant. I'd sweeten my coffee with polonium-210 if it could be done in Neotame-like quantities. Between this, a salt shaker loaded with MSG and a Darwin fish on my car, I'm doomed anyway.
I'm not competent to judge the methodology or results
That said I can see why stevia would not work for Coca Cola because you don't want the underlying bitterness of caffeine to hit you first without any sweetness. Coke needs to hit you fast. The thing about coke is that it's all about the first sip. It's as much about flavor as it is about freshness. The first sip must overwhelm your senses and energize you.
With ice teas, on the other hand, the flavors don't have to come on straight away because you're looking for freshness first and foremost. I think the pleasantness of it is mostly about cooling and soothing. You don't want it to hit you too fast; so a slow-onset flavor profile works better.
There was a short-lived product called coca cola life, with a green label that I first saw in 2015 that was sweetened with stevia alongside sugar. I never tried it.
Bonus fun fact related to the regulation of such sweeteners: even though the EU is generally considered more "strict", the sweetener cylamate is banned in the US while you can buy it at a European Lidl/Aldi (which is also the source of my sweetener bottle.)
A lot of my problems started around the same time I started binge chewing gum, but that was not the only factor in play so who knows what really happened. I started binge chewing gum because job stress was starting to give me TMJ.
It's an interesting theory, but the relationship between diet and insulin resistance is more complex. Here's a breakdown:
The Randle Cycle: The Randle Cycle, also known as the glucose-fatty acid cycle, suggests that high availability of fatty acids for beta-oxidation can inhibit glucose utilization. This is because the products of fatty acid metabolism (acetyl-CoA and NADH) directly inhibit key enzymes involved in glucose metabolism, such as pyruvate dehydrogenase and phosphofructokinase.
High Sucrose and Carbohydrate Diet: A diet high in sucrose and carbohydrates can lead to increased blood glucose levels, which in turn stimulates insulin secretion. Chronically elevated insulin levels can lead to insulin resistance over time, as cells become less responsive to the effects of insulin.
Adapting to Glycolysis: While minimizing beta-oxidation and relying primarily on glycolysis for energy might seem like a way to improve glucose metabolism, it's not that simple. Excess glucose, if not utilized by cells or stored as glycogen, can be converted to fatty acids through de novo lipogenesis, contributing to increased fat storage and potential insulin resistance.
Insulin Resistance and Glucose Metabolism: Insulin resistance is characterized by impaired glucose uptake and utilization by cells, leading to high blood glucose levels. Poor glucose metabolism can indeed lead to a preference for beta-oxidation, as suggested by the Randle Cycle. However, this is a consequence of insulin resistance rather than a cause.
In conclusion, while the theory of adapting to glycolysis by minimizing beta-oxidation is interesting, a high sucrose and carbohydrate diet is more likely to contribute to insulin resistance rather than improve it. Insulin resistance is a complex metabolic disorder influenced by various factors, including diet, physical activity, and genetics.
edit: Not completely, I don't 0 sugar, just don't add it to anything.
Which is what I did: over a day and a serious coffee habit, that adds up to quite a lot of empty calories.
It makes your body cranky.
Your body is affected by the experience of sweet, not just the fact of sugar.
That's completely nonsense. Insulin is produced in the pancreas, in reaction to your blood glucose levels, and has nothing to do with your taste buds.
Source: I use a Dexcom G7 CGM. I know exactly what creates a glucose spike, and most truly sugar-free / carbs free foods (e.g. sugarfree Jell-O) cause 0 spike.
I'm referring to, among other things:
taste receptors in the gut: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24131638/
what is apparently called Cephalic Phase Insulin Release, it's probably discussion of this paper where I first heard of it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28148491/ though other papers found no clear link ("conjectural") between CPIR and "family history of type 2 diabetes" (whatever that means): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5348013/
Diabetes is not a solved field of medicine, and rates are still rising dramatically.