you keep using that word (baking edition)

[jeliza]

While I certainly appreciate this trove of dextrose/glucose based, and therefore Fructose Malabsorption-friendly recipes that are not also not all gluten-free, calling them "sugar free" is kind of ... wrong. Yes, let's go with wrong.

I am still excited to find it, because so far the metallic (tastes like swimming pools to me) taste of all the sugar substitutes pretty much destroys the (far more plentiful) sugar-free dessert recipes we've found. (And now I have a big, unopened bag of Splenda that I really don't want to use. Truvia is also fairly nasty.)

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

There's quite a difference between plain stevia leaf (fresh or dried) and highly processed white powders including, or made from, stevia.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

...and none of them taste sweet to me past the first fraction of a second.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

Sadly, there's quite a difference between everything fresh and that which is highly processed. It's even hard to find sugar that isn't highly processed. Even Sugar in the Raw is processed. It's a sad state of being in the Western world. Two of my friends who moved here from Africa (one from Guana and one from Nigeria) said the biggest culture shock was how our food all tastes "fake".

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. There are many definitions of sugar. I can't quite figure out that one.

[jeliza]

Apparently her thing is the whole "sugar addiction/poison" theory, which apparently holds that only fructose (and therefore also sucrose) are bad. But ... yeah. I wonder how many people come to the site looking for low-calorie/low-carb and assume dextrose is a sugar substitute, since it isn't something people bake with much normally.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Right up there with fructose being "low glycemic index"... well, okay, that's kind of technically true, just not true in any meaningful sense.

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

I have a friend that uses "Stevia in the Raw." I don't use any artificial sweeteners, but if I had to, I'd try that one.

[jeliza]

I will check that out, thanks. I am hoping to in general get good enough with dextrose that we can avoid artificial sweeteners, but am not stunningly hopeful.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

Nope - Stevia in the Raw is processed too. You don't have to do much to use the "in the raw" labeling and you can process all you want, just not bleach to use it.

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

Well, in that vein everything is processed. Unless you are picking it off a plant, out of a root, out of a hive or grinding it in a pestle.... it's processed.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

That's actually not true. Stevia in the Raw is heavily processed. There is a huge industry making money off of using words like "organic" "in the raw" and "all natural". If you really want organic foods that aren't chemically processed you have to look deeper than the marketing label. And no you don't have to grow it yourself - there is an in between.

"First, erythritol is a naturally occurring sugar that is sometimes found in fruit, but food manufacturers don’t actually use the natural stuff. Instead they start with genetically engineered corn and then go through a complex fermentation process to come up with chemically pure erythritol."

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/04/25/stevia-food-babe-investigates/

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not trying to defend Stevia or any other company. They all screw with it in some way or another. Some in more ethical and healthy ways.

[jeliza]

I agree with your larger point, and know I have read some sound breakdowns of the problems with the large commercial breakdowns of stevia based-sweeteners like Truvia, but FYI, that article is a *huge* quantity of science and reading comprehension fail, and is a fair proportion of misleading and straight up wrong.

[jeliza]

It looks like that ends up being Stevia mixed with dextrose (kinda Splenda's half splenda-half-sucrose mix) which, since otherwise I have to mail-order/specialty store order the dextrose, and Stevia in the Raw is on the shelf at my safeway, is probably a win.