has anyone ever heard of erythritol?

[veggiemaya]

i saw an add for this stuff called Sun Crystals. it's a low calorie sweetener made of erythritol, which is apparently supposed to be all natural. i have tried to do a bit of research on it and i really havent seen too much about it being bad. i've been using agave and raw sugar as sweetener, but i am really trying to cut out as many calories as i can from my diet in hopes to drop a couple of pounds.

[ellaminnowpea]

Erythrose is a form of sugar, I'm not sure about the calorie content, but it is "natural".

[Mahk]

It's almost undoubtedly animal tested, but the same could be said for any sugar substitute, all man made food ingredients, all medicines, and probably even sugar itself. That wouldn't hold me back, personally, but I thought to mention it.

I had never heard of it before you asked and my total knowledge about it now comes from this:
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herb...erythritol.htm


It would seem almost too good to be true:
- virtually no calories
- no tooth decay
- "natural"
- no known side effects taken in normal quantities
- GRAS

I'm guessing it must be pricey or we would see it in many "diet" foods already. My only concern might be that it causes side effects that don't manifest themselves until decades later (?), humans have only consumed it since 1990 (Japan) and 1997 (US) so it is fairly new. If you think about other sugar substitutes like cyclamates and saccharine, they released those and then had a change of thought only once they had been out on the market for some time.

[Mahk]

I've just returned from shopping at Whole Foods Supermarket and thought to comment here that I saw some, including the Sun Crystals brand already mentioned earlier. They had four different brands in fact. Not all were 100%, some were mixes of fructose, natural flavors etc. Wow are they expensive; one brand was $18 per pound.

[veggiemaya]

funny...i wound up deciding to buy some tonight. i think its Wholesome brand. Calorie Zero or something like that. I used a packet in an orange pineapple juice i made. it tastes fine, not overly sweet. i always had a problem with the other sweeteners giving me horrible stomach issues...so far so good with this one. guess we shall see. thanks for thinking to post though!