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Xylitol: A Healthier Way To Sweeten Your Food? by Liz Bygrave

Xylitol is a natural sweetener that looks and tastes like sugar, but has only 60% of the calories, is actually good for your teeth and has a very low GI*.

It is increasingly available in health food shops & even supermarkets and, in the humble opinion of one who loves her sweet treats but wants to eat healthily, I think it’s absolutely the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Xylitol (brand names include Perfect Sweet Xylosweet and Zylobrit) is a substance that’s found in many plants and even in our own bodies. It was discovered in the 1890s but never made it out of the laboratory.....until now.

Xylitol (also spelled zylitol) has long been an indispensable item in my kitchen cupboard. It can replace sugar in everything except caramelisation and bread making. This latter seeming disadvantage is actually a benefit: xylitol can't be used in bread making because bacteria and yeasts can't grow in it. This also means that the bacteria that cause tooth decay can't grow where xylitol is present (xylitol has long been used in chewing gum & toothpaste for this reason). Nor can the candida yeast or the 'bad' bacteria that live in our intestines proliferate. This is great news for candida sufferers who usually have to avoid all sugars, even fruit, to prevent the overgrowth of candida in their bodies.

The extremely low glycemic index (GI) of xylitol means that it is broken down very slowly in the digestive system, and therefore released very slowly into the bloodstream. Sugar on the other hand has a GI of 68. This means that it zips into the bloodstream at an incredible rate. This forces our bodies to produce lots of insulin all at once in order to speed it on its way to our cells where it is used for energy. Many nutritional therapists would argue that because it's too much all at once, it can't all be used up in one go, so the excess has to be laid down as fat. Xylitol on the other hand, because of its low GI, is recommended by doctors in some countries as a safe sweetener for diabetics to use because it won't raise blood sugar levels.

Xylitol is increasingly available in shops: you can buy it in most health food shops and many supermarkets. If you send an email with your postcode to the people at Perfect Sweet (www.perfectsweet.co.uk) they will let you know your nearest stockists. Click here to buy from Sweet Sensations.

*the glycemic index (GI) represents the rate at a which a food is broken down in our digestive systems and released into the blood stream. The more slowly a food is broken down, the lower the glycemic index, and the better that food is for us as it keeps our blood sugar stable. Foods which are broken down quickly (sugar is one such food) are regarded as less healthy, among other things because they force the pancreas to release lots of insulin all at once in order to transport the glucose extracted from that food from the bloodstream into the cells. In the short term this can lead, among other symptoms, to that well known sugar rush, quickly followed by an energy slump. In the long term, it is likely that this kind of eating over taxes the pancreas and the cells, and may be a factor in weight gain. Xylitol has a very low glycemic index of 7.

Warning: whilst extensive studies show xylitol to be completely safe for humans, like chocolate, it is not safe for dogs, so on no account feed it to your pet.

You can buy xylitol and other sweeteners from the Sweet Sensations online shop.