Using Erythritol as a Sugar Substitute

This post may contain affiliate links. This simply means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support! All opinions remain my own.

Sara came traipsing through the kitchen with a bag in her hand, very excited about her recent delivery. When Amazon, Chewy, or anything else shows up at our door, it’s as if ol’ St. Nick himself cruised his sleigh into our ‘hood.

There was no sign of the jolly fat-man. But there was my wife grinning ear to ear holding a colorful, eye-pleasing bag. 

Sara discovered a sugar-like substitute that won’t increase inflammation in our bodies, rot our teeth, or generally add to the misery of getting older. Its name is erythritol.

What Is This Erythritol?

As WebMD puts it, “Erythritol . . . has been around as long as grapes, peaches, pears, watermelon, and mushrooms.” This is because it is a naturally occurring carbohydrate in these fruits. 

Erythritol, along with xylitol, sorbitol, vegetable glycerin, and others fall under the classification of sugar alcohols. A sugar alcohol is neither sugar or alcohol, but partially resembles the molecular structure of each.

John Stenhouse, a Scottish chemist, discovered erythritol in the mid-1800s, and by 1990 Japan had commercialized the polyol. 

Mother Nature simply cannot produce enough to keep up with supply and demand of the marketplace. Therefore, erythritol must be commercially produced. Erythritol is typically manufactured by fermenting corn starch with the yeast, Moniliella pollinis.

Moreover, there are brands such as Health Garden and Anthony’s that are producing it from non-GMO sources.

The brand we bought, Health Garden, is a sugar-like, white crystal granule. However, erythritol is available in powdered form as well. Erythritol has a pleasant, sweet flavor with no strange, bitter off-notes like you find with stevia. I absolutely despise that stuff. Stevia is sometimes mixed with erythritol (Truvia) to sweeten it.

How Is Erythritol Used?

Erythritol is used as a sugar substitute in many sugar-free and low-sugar drinks and foods. Cakes, puddings, ice-cream, candies, fondant, and frostings are examples of food items you could find erythritol in. 

In food manufacturing, it is used as a functional ingredient for texture improvement and as a bulking agent. 

How Do We Use Erythritol as a Sugar Substitute?

We are on a mission to eliminate as much “added sugar” out of our diet as possible. Momma says sugar is the devil!! Sara and I are down with simple natural sugars, but we don’t want to go overboard with those either.

We just want something sweet to add to our tea, and maybe use for cooking without adding undue calories.

The lack of calories is one of the beautiful things about erythritol. At approximately 0.24 calories per gram, it is a mere fraction of the calories that sugar is – which is about 4 calories per gram. In fact, it is so low that the US, Japan, and Europe considers it zero-calorie for labeling purposes.

A teaspoon of erythritol in your Peppermint Medley brings out those mint-y notes wonderfully. We have not experimented with erythritol in baking or cooking yet – eventually we will get there. Stay tuned for updates!

Concerns or Health Effects of Using Erythritol as a Sugar Substitute?

While I wouldn’t overload on eating erythritol (I have a sensitive gut), I also know, it is not going to eat me from the inside out.

Generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA and World Health Organization (WHO), there is unfortunately a lot of bad information out there suggesting erythritol and sugar alcohols are unsafe.

It is true that xylitol, for example, has been shown to be toxic to dogs, and we definitely should NOT feed it to our furry friends! However, there is no evidence that erythritol is harmful to humans. Beyond potential gas and bloating, it is perfectly safe to use erythritol a sugar substitute.

Here is my take: Much ado about nothing. This is often the case when something isn’t understood well. Everyday items we ingest, which are considered innocuous or even essential, are toxic in the right amounts.

Coffee, cinnamon, fish oil, vitamin A, and minerals such as selenium – all things considered healthy, are in fact detrimental if too much is consumed. What is healthy and what is toxic, many times, is simply a matter of thresholds.

Erythritol does not metabolize in the human body. About 90% of it is absorbed by the small intestine and excreted out through urine. The remaining 10% stays in the colon and is excreted out through feces. Therefore, it has no effect on glucose or insulin levels and is approved for use by diabetics. 

Oral and intestinal bacteria cannot digest it, which makes for a natural resistance to tooth decay and fermentation in the gut. As a result, there is really zero concern about tooth decay. There is also much less potential for gastrointestinal problems compared to other sugar alcohols.

Erythritol is known to cause gas, nausea, bloating, and diarrhea if amounts over 1 gram per kg of body-weight are consumed. In some rare instances it can cause hives.

The Bottom Line

I have been using sugar alcohols increasingly in my professional and private life to no ill-effect. Food science researchers have authored numerous peer reviewed studies on erythritol, failing to show it is unsafe. Erythritol is FDA and WHO approved. It is my belief that erythritol and sugar alcohols just plain get a bad rap. 

If you are looking for a safe, no-cal, low-carb, keto-friendly sweetener, using erythritol as a sugar substitute could be right up your alley. It does have some noted functional challenges in baking and cooking depending on your use. For example, some say erythritol does not caramelize or dissolve as well as sugar. 

Erythritol doesn’t bind moisture particularly well, so there is potential for dry and poorly textured baked products. With that in mind, it makes sense that it may not bode well for brining meats and fish either. 

However, we haven’t tested cooking or brining in our kitchen. Here is an example of someone who has had great results baking with erythritol. Man do they look good! Great job Annie.

Also worthy of note, Health Garden makes the claim that it “will not change the texture of your food like other sweeteners.”

When using erythritol as a sugar substitute, we can often overcome texture and moisture issues. Sometimes, we can achieve this by combining other ingredients or changing up the cooking process a little. I think it may be time to get in there and do some playing around ourselves!

Happy experimenting!

~Shawn

Let us know you stopped by and leave us a comment below!