Sweeteners

[cr1979]

Can anyone shed any light on this. Has anyone any tips on what to use to sweeten cereals and the likes of sugar feee drinks etc. My doctor told me to pretty much avoid sugar free items as these trick your brain into thinking you’ve had sugar therefore you can spike.

what do you guys use to make things a little less bland?

 

[Leadinglights]

There is a lot of debate about artificial sweeteners as some people are fine with them but others will find they still affect their blood glucose and some people avoid them because they don't like the taste or ethically are not a fan.
Cereals per say are often not the best option anyway as even choosing low sugar ones they are still quite high carb so you will only know if you can tolerate them by testing once you get your monitor. The other thing is that it is very easy to have more than a portion unless you actually weigh them out as they can be deceptive as to how much they weigh.
Sugar free drinks will usually have an artificial sweetener which many people will tolerate so look for ones that are less that 0.5g carb/100ml or similar when diluted if a cordial.
Beware of things with say low sugar or sugar free as they can still be high carb. So always look for the TOTAL carbohydrate on packets etc.

 

[Docb]

Must admit I don't follow the comment of your doctor. The glucose in your blood comes from the carbs in what you consume, not sure how fooling the brain comes into that. If your brain has been fooled by anything it is that it has been trained to assume that that everything must be sweet. It does not have to be.

Take cereals like oats. Boiled to death they become a stodgy almost tastless mess. Plenty of carbohydrate, decent hit of calories and the odd nutrient and it makes a passable breakfast - provided you add a dose of sugar to make it palatable. Take the same oats, mix in some chopped nuts and some seeds and toast them for about half an hour in a moderate oven with maybe some orange zest or cinnamon. What you end up with is a combination of subtle flavours which can be enhanced by the sharpness of natural yoghourt but would be completely lost by adding sugar or a sweetener.

My thought for you is to start to train your brain to appreciate sugar free things for what they are. Look for the subtlties. Eventually you might even get to a point where sweetened things become completely unpalatable because the sweetness gets in the way of every other flavour.

 

[nonethewiser]

Drink sugar free squash also diet lemonade & coke, never seen spikes so think dr is talking rubbish.

 

[helli]

Must admit I don't follow the comment of your doctor. The glucose in your blood comes from the carbs in what you consume, not sure how fooling the brain comes into that. If your brain has been fooled by anything it is that it has been trained to assume that that everything must be sweet. It does not have to be.

A few years back I read an article (sorry, I can't find it now) regarding a study with non-diabetic people drinking diet drinks containing artificial sweeteners. For some people, their brain thinks the sweetness is sugar so their pancreas releases insulin and they experience low blood sugar levels/hypo.

 

[Leadinglights]

As you reduce the amount of sweet things you have, your taste will change and things will start to taste far to sweet for your new palate. Things which I would have previously put some sugar on I will now eat without and some things are just too sweet to tolerate.