March 4, 2011
Meal Planning, Food and Diet
Question from Palm Coast, Florida, USA:
DiabetiSweet brown sugar states on the web site that, “DiabetiSweet doesn’t produce a glycemic response (does not increase blood glucose or insulin levels), and it can be used in place of sugar in conjunction with a food exchange program.” However, it does have the same amount of carbohydrates per serving as regular brown sugar. If I were to use this when I bake, do I calculate the carbohydrates or not?
Answer:
DiabetiSweet is a combination of a sugar alcohol, maltitol, and acesulfame K, therefore, you should subtract half of the sugar alcohol carbohydrate content from the item when calculating “net carbohydrates” since they tend to be incompletely absorbed into the bloodstream. For example, if a muffin made with this sweetener had 4 grams of sugar alcohol per muffin, then you would want to subtract 2 of the four grams of sugar alcohol from the total carbohydrate content.
JMS
