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Xylitol: A Healthier Way To
Sweeten Your Food?
by Liz Bygrave
Zylitol is a new 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.
Zylitol (brand names include Perfect Sweet,
Zylitol 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.
Zylitol (also spelled xylitol) has
long been an indispensable
item in my kitchen cupboard. It can replace sugar in everything except bread making.
This seeming disadvantage is actually a benefit: zylitol 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 zylitol is present (zylitol 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
glycaemic index (GI) of zylitol 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
(although 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). Zylitol on the other hand, because of its low GI, is recommended by
doctors in some other countries as a safe sweetener for diabetics to use because
it won't raise blood sugar levels.
*the glycaemic 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 glycaemic 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. Zylitol has a very low glycaemic index of 7.
Warning: whilst
extensive studies show that zylitol is completely safe for humans, like
chocolate, it is not safe for dogs, so on no account feed it to your pet, even
in small amounts.
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