Erythritol - the story begins

For about a month, I've been buying lemon-line flavoured water from the kibbutz shop; what is special about this water is that it claims to have 0 calories per 100 ml, as opposed to the previous flavoured water that I used to purchase, with 15 calories/100 ml. Eventually I got around to checking what the ingredients of the 'new' flavoured water are and how it can have 0 calories/100 ml. After all, my bachelor's degree is in Food Science and my dissertation was on analytic methods for calculating the amount of xylitol in foods; xylitol is a 'sugar alcohol', sweet but not a sugar like glucose. 45 years ago, xylitol was a new and exciting sugar replacement.

The sweetener used in the flavoured water is erythritol, and like xylitol, it too is a sugar alcohol. Glucose has six carbon atoms in its structure and is thus a monosaccharide; xylitol has five and erythritol has only four. It is non-caloric as the body cannot metabolise erythritol; this in itself doesn't mean too much as often the gut flora can metabolise what we can't. If that happens, then one of the end products is gas. Interestingly, the gut flora also cannot metabolise erythritol, and so all that one ingests is excreted as is.

When I was a child, I was told not to eat sweets as they would cause holes in my teeth. Whilst this is accurate, it's not the scientific story. Bacteria in the mouth, primarily Streptococcus mutans, metabolise sugar that is left on the teeth and create lactic acid that is the factor that creates holes in the dental enamel. These bacteria also cannot metabolise erythritol.

From what I have learned so far, erythritol is the perfect sweetener (better also than any artificial sweetener), so of course I had to order some. I doubt that it is sold as is in Israel, so I had to order from IHerb. I wasn't really on the ball at first, so I only ordered the powder for use in tea. Later on, I looked for further products - toothpaste and chocolate - and ordered these. Today the powder arrived and I shall be examining its effect upon me.

The toothpaste will be interesting: anything that reduces dental plaque will be good, although I doubt that the small amount of toothpaste used each time will contribute much. I found an article in Hebrew about erythritol's dental applications that I printed for my oral hygienist.

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