As you already know, sugar has gotten quite the bad rap recently, and rightly so. Its impact on the body is shown to cause a variety of health problems. In order to combat this sugar epidemic, you need other options. Sugar-free sweeteners are just one of the many options available to provide you with that little touch of sweetness.
Some of the most common New Year’s Resolution consist of getting in shape, losing weight, or eating healthier. These goals are often hard to accomplish as many of us have to break old habits. It may also be important to find ways to still implement healthy options of your favorite treats or meals in order to help you maintain your goal throughout the entire year. Sweeteners can be there to get you through those sugar cravings. Let’s look at a few ways that
SWEETENERS CAN HELP YOU KEEP WITHIN YOUR CALORIE GOAL.
Most calorie counting diets go by the slogan “calories in/ calories out.” In other words, you are trying to burn more calories than you are eating. This normally means eating a very small amount of food and exercising more frequently to burn off calories.
This diet also doesn’t leave much room for calorie filled desserts like ice cream (around 210 calories) or brownies (around 132 calories). Sweeteners can also help with this dilemma, so that even when you need something sweet, you aren’t doubling your calories for the day.
In order for our bodies, calories are measured by the amount of energy we release when certain foods are metabolized. In the case of sweeteners, they have no calories because our bodies do not metabolize them at all (Source).
SWEETENERS CAN HELP YOU STAY WITHIN YOUR CARBOHYDRATE GOAL WHILE ON THE KETO DIET.
The ketogenic diet, also known as keto is a diet of high fats and low carbohydrates. In food terms, it is eating no breads, sugars, fruits, or starchy vegetables, but rather cheeses, dairy, meat, and greens. On this diet, people aim for 70% fat, 20% protein, and 10% carbs. Normally, this means that you would cut your carbs down to be anywhere between 50 grams to 20 grams per day.
Cutting out that many carbs leaves you no room for a sugary donut (around 31 grams of carbs), or a piece of your favorite cake (around 80 grams of carbs). Sweeteners are here to help with that dilemma. With monk fruit, erythritol, or allulose, you can still make yummy treats that do not have all the carbohydrates from sugar. You could make keto peanut butter cookies, lemon bars, or cake to name a few.
As mentioned previously, the reason that sweeteners contain no carbohydrates is because our body does not metabolize them. With sugars, and breads, our body metabolizes them into glucose which increases the amount of energy that is produced, increasing calories and carbs.
SWEETENERS CAN HELP YOU LOWER YOUR A1C OR MANAGE DIABETES.
Diabetes happens when a person has high insulin levels, which also cause high glucose or blood sugar levels. Many diabetics will go on a keto or low carb diet because insulin also increases blood sugar. A standard person’s blood sugar average, or A1c is below 5.6, while people with diabetes can have an A1c of 5.7 to 6.5 or above.
Therefore, using sweeteners like monk fruit, allulose, or erythritol all help to decrease blood sugar while still allowing sweet foods to be apart of life. Sweeteners do not affect your blood sugar levels.