Looking Into Sugar Alternatives For Keto

In this article we’ll look into the variety of sweetening alternatives to sugar so you stay in ketosis. You want to avoid turning on a release of insulin or an excitotoxic reaction producing inflammation.

KETO Sweeteners

When you first look at how to do a ketosis diet it seems pretty basic. Just cutting out the carbohydrates cutting out the sugar and everything else is OK to eat. Considering all the different sweeteners that are out we have so many different artificial and natural sweeteners. It’s just really hard to tell what’s gonna kick you out of keto. What’s actually approved for keto and what is not. So here’s a nice list of all the sweeteners you will see in “sugarless” foods and candies. Sugar is sucrose. Sucrose is regular table sugar usually made from sugar cane or sugar beets. Of course regular sugar is not going to be allowed on a keto diet. Thus the want for sugar free alternatives.

I’m starting with aspartame. Aspartame is usually what you will see in diet sodas or in some sugar-free candies. It is probably the most popular artificial sweetener now. Although the stuff is basically, a poison, it’s not gonna kick you out of keto. This is synthetic, so in the sense that it doesn’t trigger an insulin response, it ends up being something that technically is okay for maintaining keto.

There’s also sucralose. Sucralose, also known as Splenda, is one of the most common sweeteners that’s used on a keto diet and it’s kind of a gray area. If you get a packet of sucralose or a packet of Splenda it usually has maltodextrin added to it. The maltodextrin can trigger an insulin response so therefore if you’re loading up on sucralose via the little packets then you’re likely to trigger an insulin response that will kick you out of keto. The other thing that we have to be wary of is what’s called the excitotoxin response.
Whenever you’re dealing with aspartame or sucralose or saccharine or any of these really super-sweet sweeteners you have an excitotoxin response. That means is that it triggers a glutamate response in your brain, basically it triggers the brain to go hyperactive, heating things up. This can be detremental to your brain This can also trigger the pancreas to do some different bad things now a lot of this is still under investigation. Scientists are trying to figure out whether just having something sweet in the first place can actually trigger an insulin response anyway. The point is super low synthetic sugar packets should be avoided. If you get sucralose that’s in a product sure, sucralose isn’t exactly good for you but, it shouldn’t kick you out of keto. Except if it has maltodextrin included in the ingredients. Sucralose has been shown to kill off a good portion of our gut bacteria which can negatively impact on your ketogenic diet. So just be careful with that one.

The next one is honey. That is pollen naturally refined by bees. This is an interesting one because people often ask if they can consume honey simply because it’s natural, or because of the lower sugar content. Honey is refined fructose and it’s a very sweet fructose. Fructose is processed differently in the body so fructose travels through what is called the active transport chain. Sugars are transported to the mitochondria with no time to collect and turn into fat for storage. Instead of going through the normal digestion process and normal absorption process, honey, as with any form of fructose, gets an expedited delivery to the liver. This means that when you have too much honey it’s very easy for it to get converted into fat and it happens very rapidly. So honey will kick you out of keto. Also, more importantly, honey gets converted into fat way easier.

My favorite is monk fruit. Now talk about an interesting one. Sweetening with monk in the West started not that long ago. It burst onto the scene maybe two three years ago, but just in the last year that it started to gain popularity. So monk fruit is a resounding yes for those on Keto diets. Monk Fruit is definitely good to use as an alternative sweetener.
What is special about monk fruit is it’s built up of what it’s called Mogrocides. Those are known to be very powerful antioxidants in the body. So along with a safe sweetener you also get something that is literally sweetened with an antioxidant. Any of the sort of toxic effect that you would have, even the excitotoxin effect, is actually reduced because you have an antioxidant property. When we look at packet sugars like aspartame and sucralose, you’re having this heightened heightened excitotoxin response in the brain. That condition is toxic and releasing free radicals into the brain. When you sweeten something with an antioxidant, then even if you did have an excitotoxin effect (from eating too much too fast) you’re somewhat counteracting those free radicals. Because it’s an antioxidant to begin with so that’s very very powerful. One other thing with monk fruit is it brings dramatic changes in the reduction of what is called nuclear factor Kappa B. This is the main driver for inflammation in the body, but also causes reductions in interleukin 6. Even better are attendant reductions in what is called the cyclooxygenase enzyme 2.

If you take an aspirin you are reducing cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme one and two. That’s how you reduce inflammation. However, we don’t want to reduce cyclooxygenase enzyme one because that’s what protects the gut lining. That’s why you always hear when you take ibuprofen or aspirin to do it in moderation because you’ll get a bleeding ulcer in your stomach. It will bleed because you’re reducing the inflammation that protects your gut. Well monk fruit is so superior because it reduces only cyclooxygenase enzyme two, not COX-1 so that is why monk fruit is my favorite sweetener of all time.

Get Monk Fruit Chocolate Here

Because I love monk fruit and because you’ll love monk fruit
There’s a couple variations of monk fruit and erythritol which they also have for chocolate now. When you try monk fruit sweetened chocolate you have a snack that is totally keto friendly.

Go out and get your hands on some of the monk fruits sweetener and invent some recipes.
Here’s a great source of monk sweetened chocolate bars and cafe syrups.
See the video at My-Sugar-Free-Chocolate-Melt-Test
Read the article Motiv8ion-N8ion-Sugar-Free-Chocolate

The next best one is stevia. If you’re a stevia fan there’s some things that we have to consider with stevia and some of it is newer research. Stevia might produce an insulin response. There are some effects that occur that might trigger the pancreas to secrete a little bit of insulin through his beta cells. Now it’s not anything that will effect your health. It’s not at all what you would get with another sweetener but it’s still something to be cognizant of. The potential still exists to lose ketosis if misused.
One added benefit of stevia is that it increases sodium excretion. So if you’re feeling puffy or bloated, if you’re holding extra water, a little bit of stevia can actually encourage the kidneys to expel sodium causing you to drop that extra water weight.

Next is Agave. Agave a lot people think is so low glycemic that it’s gonna be good to use as a sugar substitute. But Agave is no good for keto. Simply because, even though it’s only a 9 or a 10 on the glycemic index scale, the processing that Agave goes through to actually make it sweet ends up leaving it at over 80% fructose. Remember how with honey the fructose goes straight to de novo lipid genesis almost exclusively Whatever isn’t immediately used is converted to fat. Well Agave is the same. Plus with so much additional processing that is required to create it.
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a BIG NO for Keto because it’s a concentrated form of fructose. So when you look at honey and agave as high fructose, HFCS is super concentrated fructose. The probability of that turning into fat is very high for most of the quantity of it.

Another big one is erythritol. It is one of the sugar alcohols. As a sugar alcohol you’re good to go for keto. Although it sounds like a chemical sounding name that throws people off, erythritol is just a plant fiber.
Actually, it’s difference is pretty straightforward, 90% of the sugar alcohols that you get from erythritol will absorb through the stomach, before the bowels. Because of this it is much less likely to cause alcohol sugar intestinal problems.
Why is that important? Normally, if you have sugar alcohols like isomalt or maltitol, you risk bloating and diarrhea. That’s pretty common. You don’t even need to have too much to even have that effect.
It’s 0.7 times as sweet as sugar so it’s not quite as sweet. This can prevent you from having a toxic response. When artificail sweeteners have two or three to sometimes 185 times the sweetness of sugar, that’s a trigger to your brain you’ll have a profound effect. Your brain notices this is super sweet it gets super excited. Then it triggers all kinds of inflammatory responses. So it’s definitely good to use monk fruit and erythritol combined.
The last one is isomalt. You may know it from sugar free varieties of brands like Russell Stover candies. Also, some of the candies and products for diabetics are sweetened with isomalt. Isomalt is something that makes me nervous. It may be considered keto friendly but some sugar alcohols do trigger insulin responses okay they actually can ferment in your gut which will throw off your gut bacteria balance. So steer clear of isomalt and maltitol.

Then there is glycerol. Interestingly, glycerol or glycerin is not a carb or a fat. It’s not a protein either it’s its own macronutrient class. Glycerol is used as a natural sweetener but it has a very unique property. It’s very hydrophilic. That means wherever glycerol goes, water follows. When you consume something sweetened with glycerol,
It goes to both your intracellular and extracellular fluids and draws water out. It has zero glycemic effect so you get zero blood sugar response, thus zero insulin response. Glycerol is processed entirely differently. Using glycerol is okay for keto diets. One bit of caution with stevia -go for the liquid form whenever possible because the powder forms of stevia oftentimes still have the maltodextrin.

Go out and get your hands on some of the monk fruits sweetener and invent some recipes.
Here’s a great source of monk sweetened chocolate bars and cafe syrups.

Here’s a great source of monk sweetened chocolate bars and cafe syrups.
See the video at My-Sugar-Free-Chocolate-Melt-Test
Read the article Motiv8ion-N8ion-Sugar-Free-Chocolate

Watch This Video To Learn Where Monk Fruit Sweetening Comes From.
www.youtube.com/How Monk Fruit Is Picked And Processed