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A New Sweetener Has Joined the Ranks of Aspartame and Stevia
- adamredwoods 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazzein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazzein
- tomcam 3y agoDamnit, gorilla taste receptors don't recognize the sweetness. Now I need to find a better treat for my overweight gorillas.
- namegulf 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sp332 3y agoOk but the author has high blood sugar. If they stuck to sugar it could lead to organ failure and death.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoIs a life without sugar even worth living? /s
- mckn1ght 3y agoCut processed foods and soda and canned arnold palmers, eat more fruits (which should be basically your only source of simple sugars) and definitely more vegetables, and get more exercise. Especially if there's a family history of diabetes!
- gruez 3y ago>Cut processed foods and soda and canned arnold palmers, eat more fruits Advice resembling this has been pushed for decades in the US but it has only gotten fatter. Clearly this sort of advice doesn't work.
- mise_en_place 3y agoBecause PUFAs cause systemic inflammation. If your pancreas is inflamed you won’t properly secrete insulin.
- gruez 3y agoHow is this related to the advice of "just say no to [insert harmful but palatable food]" not working for the past few decades? Moreover, even if you believe PUFA/seed oils are toxic, surely it's better to not consume sugar (and all the associated calories/insulin spikes) in the first place?
- XorNot 3y agoBecause people keep failing to lose weight following it. It's advice that doesn't generate any measure of success or effectiveness, and is likely to make you feel worse and thus regress: the difficulty of it is so common that it's a Hollywood trope to show someone over-eating or eating ice cream on a couch to say "this person is stressed". Advice which doesn't work, or can't be adhered to, is bad advice. "You shouldn't eat X" is always coming from someone who doesn't want or like X in the first place. They have no investment in it, it's the easiest thing in the world for them to say because they don't want it to start with.
- mckn1ght 3y agoOh, I definitely like treats, and grew up drinking soda. As well as cream and sugar in coffee, and tons of other little places sugar sneaks into. Fruit juices, even the healthy 100% orange juice, not from concentrate. It took years and years to train myself out of eating elevated levels of sugars every day. Now that I’ve done that hard work, yes, I can’t tolerate drinking a large cup of soda. I will drink a small, like 4-8 oz amount, as a treat on extreme occasion, like some of the special sodas the local breweries make around the holidays. Even then I feel it though. But I also just don’t buy the stuff. A lot easier to say no when it’s not staring you in the face day in and day out at home. Out of sight, out of mind. Getting to the point where you don’t want it anymore is kind of the point.
- add-sub-mul-div 3y agoFortunately for the other guy real sugar isn't contraindicated with main character syndrome.
- pureheartlover 3y agoThere was an incredible post on HN a couple years ago about a guy who would test experimental sweeteners and one of them left his mouth tasting sweet for several months. I tried to find it in the past but never could.
- user_7832 3y agoWas it his mouth or his kitchen? I remember a post about someone who ordered a sweetener from some Chinese industrial supplier and accidentally spilled/destroyed the packaging in his kitchen, making everything cooked there taste sweet for a long time.
- pureheartlover 3y agoPossibly - The one I recall just had a hobby of trying out experimental sweeteners.
- aaron695 3y agoHere - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566
- user_7832 3y agoThank you, I think that was it! How did you find it? Googling or searching HN?
- RealityVoid 3y agoIt sounded like sucralose(although it turned out to be neotame). Sucralose is very potent, one knife tip sweetens 4l of water and the powder is very fine and tends to linger around. It's also very cheap.
- hinkley 3y agocleaning?
- cmmeur01 3y ago
- jlund-molfese 3y agohttps://archive.is/5lyRR https://archive.is/5lyRR
- hinkley 3y agoStop trying to trick your body into thnking you ate something you did not. It makes your body cranky.
- rjh29 3y agoNo it doesn't.
- hinkley 3y agoThe wheels of insulin reaction starts when you taste sweets, (both in your mouth and receptors in the intestines), not when the sugar hits your bloodstream. Your body is affected by the experience of sweet, not just the fact of sugar.
- guiambros 3y ago> The wheels of insulin reaction starts when you taste sweets, That's completely nonsense. Insulin is produced in the pancreas, in reaction to your blood glucose levels, and has nothing to do with your taste buds. Source: I use a Dexcom G7 CGM. I know exactly what creates a glucose spike, and most truly sugar-free / carbs free foods (e.g. sugarfree Jell-O) cause 0 spike.
- hinkley 3y agoThe pancreas is part of the endocrine system and blood sugar is far from the only signalling pathway. I'm not sure why you would think I was suggesting a 'spike' in blood sugar from this. Wouldn't it be a reduction? I'm referring to, among other things: taste receptors in the gut: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24131638/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24131638/ what is apparently called Cephalic Phase Insulin Release, it's probably discussion of this paper where I first heard of it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28148491/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28148491/ though other papers found no clear link ("conjectural") between CPIR and "family history of type 2 diabetes" (whatever that means): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5348013/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5348013/ Diabetes is not a solved field of medicine, and rates are still rising dramatically.
- renewiltord 3y agoDoes anyone know how to get the original oubli fruit/berry in the US? Seems interesting.
- nullserver 3y agoWas having a lot of blood clots. Eventually found that artificial sugar erythritol was a major cause. Advil being the other one i found.
- ohmyiv 3y agoThanks for the info about Advil. I didn't know NSAIDs increased the risk of blood clots.
- swozey 3y agoThe best thing I ever did for my health, fat %, inflammation that caused all sorts of issues like brain fog and skin issues, etc was to completely void sugar from my life. It took awhile to get used to drinking black coffee and I drank 2 liters of mountain dew my entire teenage years which turned to water but years later I cant touch anything sweet it absolutely disgusts me. edit: Not completely, I don't 0 sugar, just don't add it to anything.
- XorNot 3y agoBlack coffee is more then sugar free though: you're cutting out the milk as well. Which is what I did: over a day and a serious coffee habit, that adds up to quite a lot of empty calories.
- user_7832 3y agoDoes anyone know if there are any issues with sugar alcohols (like maltitol/sorbitol etc)? I see them in medical syrups at times. Bonus fun fact related to the regulation of such sweeteners: even though the EU is generally considered more "strict", the sweetener cylamate is banned in the US while you can buy it at a European Lidl/Aldi (which is also the source of my sweetener bottle.)
- whaleofatw2022 3y agoToo much and you might get a laxative effect.
- doctorhandshake 3y agoPossibly increased risk of heart attack and stroke. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/erythritol-cardiovascular-events https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/erythri...
- user_7832 3y agoThanks, that's a fair bit disappointing to be honest haha
- el_benhameen 3y agoAnecdotal, but they mess with my stomach, even in small amounts. I can tell when I’ve accidentally eaten a food with sugar alcohols because I’ll get an unpleasant gurgling soon after.
- user_7832 3y agoThanks, that's interesting to know. Someone else commented about how they might effectively mess the gut microbiome.
- hinkley 3y agoAlso potential disruption of gut biota, since some 'bad' bacteria can consume sugar alcohols. A lot of my problems started around the same time I started binge chewing gum, but that was not the only factor in play so who knows what really happened. I started binge chewing gum because job stress was starting to give me TMJ.
- jongjong 3y agoIMO, stevia can have a superior flavor profile to sugar for certain specific use cases. I really like it in ice teas because the sweetness comes on slow and that makes the drink seem more refreshing. Also, I can't taste any aftertaste because the tea leaves themselves produce a mild, pleasant bitter aftertaste which is conveniently paired with the longer-lasting sweetness of stevia. That said I can see why stevia would not work for Coca Cola because you don't want the underlying bitterness of caffeine to hit you first without any sweetness. Coke needs to hit you fast. The thing about coke is that it's all about the first sip. It's as much about flavor as it is about freshness. The first sip must overwhelm your senses and energize you. With ice teas, on the other hand, the flavors don't have to come on straight away because you're looking for freshness first and foremost. I think the pleasantness of it is mostly about cooling and soothing. You don't want it to hit you too fast; so a slow-onset flavor profile works better.
- extraduder_ire 3y ago> That said I can see why stevia would not work for Coca Cola because you don't want the underlying bitterness of caffeine to hit you first without any sweetness. There was a short-lived product called coca cola life, with a green label that I first saw in 2015 that was sweetened with stevia alongside sugar. I never tried it.
- quickslowdown 3y agoMy mind is kind of blown reading this entire thread. I've always thought stevia tasted like bitter ass, not a redeeming flavor in the entire profile, ruins every food or beverage it's in, etc. I've never met anyone personally who likes it, but it turns out a bunch of nerds on the Internet do!
- jongjong 3y agoDid you heat it up? Like in a hot beverage? I find it tastes really bitter if you heat it up. I don't recall any bitterness if it's not cooked.
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- mise_en_place 3y agoI may get downvoted for this, but wouldn’t a high sucrose and high carbohydrate diet improve insulin resistance? If you minimize beta oxidation, then in theory, your body will adapt to primarily utilizing glycolysis for energy. The Randle cycle shows that poor glucose metabolism leads to preference of beta oxidation.
- Projectiboga 3y agoI'm a type 1 since 1982, went on 'human insulin' Regulal and NPH. I quickly was on a 3,000 plus calorie diet. I never altered it besides moving two of my three snacks into meals. I consume about 60% carbohydrates, I do about 30% fat. So I consume fresh brewed Yerba Mate with oolong added. Both mild and high in thenine. I also take melatonin. My insulin use is low for by body weight. Interesting that not avoiding sugar could be ok with a balanced diet and actually help the insulin be less oxidative.
- darkmuck 3y agoI asked Claude 3 Opus about this, here is its response: It's an interesting theory, but the relationship between diet and insulin resistance is more complex. Here's a breakdown: The Randle Cycle: The Randle Cycle, also known as the glucose-fatty acid cycle, suggests that high availability of fatty acids for beta-oxidation can inhibit glucose utilization. This is because the products of fatty acid metabolism (acetyl-CoA and NADH) directly inhibit key enzymes involved in glucose metabolism, such as pyruvate dehydrogenase and phosphofructokinase. High Sucrose and Carbohydrate Diet: A diet high in sucrose and carbohydrates can lead to increased blood glucose levels, which in turn stimulates insulin secretion. Chronically elevated insulin levels can lead to insulin resistance over time, as cells become less responsive to the effects of insulin. Adapting to Glycolysis: While minimizing beta-oxidation and relying primarily on glycolysis for energy might seem like a way to improve glucose metabolism, it's not that simple. Excess glucose, if not utilized by cells or stored as glycogen, can be converted to fatty acids through de novo lipogenesis, contributing to increased fat storage and potential insulin resistance. Insulin Resistance and Glucose Metabolism: Insulin resistance is characterized by impaired glucose uptake and utilization by cells, leading to high blood glucose levels. Poor glucose metabolism can indeed lead to a preference for beta-oxidation, as suggested by the Randle Cycle. However, this is a consequence of insulin resistance rather than a cause. In conclusion, while the theory of adapting to glycolysis by minimizing beta-oxidation is interesting, a high sucrose and carbohydrate diet is more likely to contribute to insulin resistance rather than improve it. Insulin resistance is a complex metabolic disorder influenced by various factors, including diet, physical activity, and genetics.
- carterschonwald 3y agoSo I actually tried out one of the newer fda approved aspartame related compounds, called Neotame. It’s pretty potent. Nice flavor profile.
- leland 3y agoAllulose! Why isn’t it more popular? Tastes almost exactly like refined white cane sugar, caramelizes like sugar, yet has almost no calories and doesn’t make blood sugar spike. Just had some hot chocolate made with it and I’d give you $5 if you could tell it from regular sugar.
- RealityVoid 3y agoI wonder where can I buy it? I have been doing the rounds experimenting with artificial sweeteners and it's actually very interesting seeing how different they are.
- jitl 3y agoI bought a big bag on Amazon and really like it. This is the one I got (not an affiliate link, copied from the Amazon iPhone app) https://a.co/d/2w8I9py https://a.co/d/2w8I9py
- tssva 3y agoUntil last year I hadn’t heard of allulose. Through the course of the year I started trying some new sugar free products. As usual most of them were a disappointment but I noticed a trend. The ones that I enjoyed and actually satisfied my occasional sugar craving contained allulose.
- jitl 3y agoAllulose is great. I can’t stand the other ones (omg monkfruit is the worst) but allulose tastes pretty spot on, very little strangeness. I like that it dissolves more easily than sugar in cold or room temperature liquids. I’d recommend to start slowly with it since it made me a bit farty initially.
- _nalply 3y agoI discovered that it's better to avoid sweeteners completely and consume sugars in small amounts. Both seem to be bad for the body but differently. Sweeteners make me hungry. Sugars make me high then low. After a few years of low sweetness I started to find milk sweet. I can drink coffee without sugar because milk by itself tastes sweet enough (lactose). I completely stopped with soft drinks and dilute juices with the same to double the amount of water or just drink plain water.