is sugar alcohol bad if on low carb diet???

[crunch1]

most sugar free food has some sort of sugar alcohol---does this make it useless to eat if you are on a low carb diet?

for instance:

sugar free syrup
or
sugar free ice cream

is this shit bad for you or what?

i guess i'd really like to know the deal with sugar alcohol.

p.s- tried a search couldn't come up with much.

thanks,

crunch

 

[diamonddiceclay]

check the labels of the items you are thinking of-if carbs are high, don't eat them-ice cream for 1 is not a good idea for a low carb diet

 

[MS]

You should limit your intake of sugar alcohols, especially if they have calories. Some sugar alcohols cannot be metabolized, others (such as glycerol) have quite a few cals that will mainly get converted to carbs if you're on a low carb diet.

 

[chillin408]

I would avoid those types of food as much as possible while on a low carb diet. If your talking about a ketogenic, I would avoid them all together. Super low GI carbs are the best. After that, I would think sugar alcohols are better than medium to high GI carbs that are high in calories. I am only saying this because I feel I can eat AST protein bars that have 17g of malititol and stay full for awhile. Alot longer than eating wheat bread, but not as long as eating nuts or cauliflower and broccoli. This may be due to the casein in the bars though--I don't know for sure. I'm not saying to eat them, by all means, try to avoid them as much as possible, but from my experience I feel that they are slighthy better than high GI carbs. Just incase, I am mentioning this....If a product says 'sugar-free,' I believe that it can still contain actual carbs( Like maltodextrin). If it says zero carbs, then it probably just has sugar-alcohols.

 

[MS]

It depends entirely on the sugar alcohol. For instance maltilol contains 2 calories per gram whereas glycerol contains 7 cals per gram. The name 'sugar alcohol' doesn't really tell you very much about the nutritional content of a food.

 

[MR. BMJ]

All polyols are absorbed very slowly and incompletely from the intestine because they undergo passive diffusion. Therefore, in excess, diarrhea can occur to some people. Like MS mentioned, most sugar alcohols undergo incomplete absorption via fermentive degradation by the intestinal flora, which means that they do not yield the usual 4 calories per gram. This in return includes them as a reduced energy/low-energy sweetener by the FDA. MS was also correct in that sugar alcohols produce around 2 calories per gram (2.4 by the European Community Nutritional Labeling Directive). They are usually used as bulking agents and humectants in confections. To answer your question, just count them into your diet by figuring their nutritive value at or around 2-2.4 calories per gram.

By the way, maltitol is 85% as sweet as sucrose if that matters any. As for a GI rating, I don't know what they would be, but as a not-so-good-feeling-guess, it may be higher than most of the other polyols. I have nothing to back this up though.

MR. BMJ

MR. BMJ