Review: ZSweet

So based on my last post, the most interesting thing to you is probably my use of ZSweet. What is erythritol, and why would I pay about $12.99 for something like a pound of the stuff over Splenda or NutraSweet (brands of aspartame and sucralose-hmmm finding a link about what those are rather than why they are potentially dangerous was quite hard there)?

Erythritol is a naturally occurring sugar alcohol that can be found in some melons and wine. Unlike sorbitol, maltitol, and other sugar alcohols, it is absorbed but not digested so it does not cause gas or digestion problems. (See Associated Content for more details.) It comes down to this-it is natural and not a human-synthesized chemical. Stevia is another popular natural sweetener, but I'm not a fan of the taste, which can be bitter.

Erithrytol is 70% the sweetness of table sugar, so you'll have to use a bit more of it to match the sweetness. However, it has an estimated .2 Calories/ gram, versus 4 for sugar. Just so you know, calorie counts are only estimates, and different proteins, fats and carbs do actually have minutely different caloric content.

As with many sugar substitutes, they will tell you it can be used the same as sugar, but from my own experience and what I've read, this is not true. EatingWell said it didn't work well in cookies, and even though I've liked the stuff I've made with it, some of my friends have not liked it as much (not that it's not good-that it's not sweet enough even though I used more of it to compensate). Also, there is a cooling effect when one adds it to a solution, meaning that it is an endothermic solution. So adding it to a yogurt will make that yogurt a bit colder. But then one can fix simply by allowing the food a chance to return to desired temperature, or heating it.

I've added it to my smoothies and to yogurt (I'll talk about Greek Yogurt in later posts), and I've really liked the taste. It does taste like sugar and by buying things without added sugar, one can control the level of sweetness, whether one wants it more or less sweet. It is a great way to reduce your sugar intake while keeping life sweet. Highly recommended

Welcome

Hey guys,

My name is Aaron and I am currently a freshman at MIT. It's been a heck of a semester and one of the biggest challenges at a school known for all-nighters and crazy eating (we don't have centralized dining because the admins couldn't get everyone to eat at the same time) has been maintaining good health and fitness. Because of this, I want to share my research and offer a resource for those in similar situations or those who are just interested in healthy habits.

This blog isn't going to be all about "I decided to cut carbs and do cardio for 12 minutes every morning," rather I want to incorporate things like how I came to view food in general, which some of you may have some experience with if you've read books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma or In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan or Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. In the past two years, I have learned to think of food as more than sustenance-it is capital, it is culture, and it is government. It affects the environment, the economy, and our state-of-being. Touching on the topic of global warming (I really don't think that needs a hyperlink at this point), food in the near future could become a source of world conflict. Our agricultural industry is based on our knowledge of how to respond to the current climate-the hydrological, carbon, and nitrogen cycles among other things.

Even from the beginning of this entry, I have reconsidered everything I want to write about in this blog. I hope that it will be inconstant evolution, incorporating different things such as healthy living (in terms of nutrition and sustainability) and branching out into politics (maybe?). This blog will be a record of my attempts simply to live healthfully, happily, and purposefully.

Thanks for being here.