Damn it it's in Celsius. Glad I don't drink it often.
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
344 points (95.5% liked)
science
20552 readers
610 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Well shit I use it daily for my coffee and home-made milk tea. Reading all this stuff coming to light about sugar substitutes is gonna make me just go back to regular sugar or maybe coconut sugar, and I’ll just control my intake.
You can use Stevia. It's a natural product, zero calories. There is a more expensive option in monk fruit as well. I live on Stevia. It's easily available in groceries and stores, and reasonably priced too.
I do use Stevia. The thing is, all the stevia products I see at the grocery store are laced with erythritol. Does the product you consume exclusively use stevia only?
not all of them, sweetleaf doesnt have any of the substitute. there are others.
I buy stand alone stevia product, and never buy drinks or baked goods in the store. I make them myself at home. I have not been able to find stevia-made drinks or foods like ice cream here so I just don't consume them. It's summer, and I'd love to have some ice cream once in a while but I don't.
load more comments
(2 replies)
stevia is not a natural product. there is indeed a plant named stevia and it can be used as a sweetener. Stevia that you buy at the store is chemically produced and is derived through a complex process that uses petroleum based chemistry to extract the chemicals from the plant.
raw sugar has far less environmental impact than buying stevia. if you truly want a sugar alternative grow your own sugar beets. it's literally raw sugar(sucrose).
load more comments
(1 replies)
Honestly, I've had better luck just getting higher quality tea and cutting sugar from morning beverages entirely. (I don't drink coffee, but low quality teas tend to become bitter, which required sugar. Higher quality teas never become bitter)
These days, I'm cutting sugar across the board. Shredded wheat with frozen raspberries tastes better than honey bunches of oats anyways. And the sugar I'm eating is pretty much just for fun, like pie or ice cream. No reason to accidentally ingest 28g of sugar in a breakfast bar that doesn't even taste that good.
Never got why coffee needs sugar. Its supposed to be bitter. If its too bitter then you may add milk. But sugar? That doesn't belong in coffee.
Interesting thing about most sugar substitutes is they actually kill mouth & gut microbiome.
Any evidence for this in Stevia or Monk Fruit?
I also don't have any studies, but I am aware of xylitol being used in toothpaste, chewing gum, etc., usually with the "assists in the prevention of tooth decay" type of tagline.
xylitol does have beneficial affects against bacteria
Xylitol is different from erythritol, but both are "sugar alcohols" so further study would be needed
I believe that is just because chewing gum increases salivation which helps keep bacteria in check
Erithrol is the sweetener derived from monkfruit.
I did a couple searches and I didn't see that mentioned. In my searches I read that monk fruit so like 250x sweeter than sugar, so erythritol is used as a "bulking agent" for monk fruit. So I guess they use it to dilute monk fruit and make it more manageable? Idk, I've been consuming both for quite a while and this is news to me, going to have to learn more about both.
That makes sense.
No. I don't have any studies on hand, but the data that I'm aware of says that stevia is one of the small few that actually helps your gut biome. However, too high of a quantity can lead to other issues (I think related to the heart).
Stevia is often blended with it but only lists in the ingredients.
it's also often blended with dextrose which is SUPER annoying if you're trying to do specialized baking or diets
I've checked store brands
www.fooducate.com/product/Sweet-Additions-Stevia/7D892B72-6914-11E1-AFF9-1231380C18FB
https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/373190/wt1
https://www.fooducate.com/product/Kroger-Stevia-Blend/B5C6A580-5826-11E2-A40C-1231381A0463
ETA: in the raw lists dextrose
I don't know about baking, but avoiding random other stuff blended in is why I get my stevia as a liquid -- the one I use only has water, stevia extract, and a couple of preservatives.
It's probably a lot more manageable as a liquid. I had powdered pure stevia and it would get EVERYWHERE and contaminate random things with horrible levels of sweetness. I think I'll get a liquid next time I need it (e.g. for rounding out allulose to make up for its 70% sweetness compared to sucrose)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
I thought xylitol was good for gut biome
We have mouth/gut biome that eats sugar? Seems weird.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Best used as ETN then.