The Good Health Guide

Liz Bygrave of Sweet Sensations explores the new ways to guilt-free indulgence.

If someone told you about a new sweetener that looked and tasted like sugar, but had 40% fewer calories, was actually good for your teeth and had a very low GI*, wouldn’t you be hot footing it towards your nearest supermarket demanding to be told which aisle it was on?

Well I haven’t seen it in any of our local supermarkets yet (though I don’t think it will be long), but I have seen it on the shelves at GNC on Muswell Hill Broadway 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.

The product in question is called zylitol (brand names include Perfect Sweet, Zylitol and Zylobrit) and is a substance that’s found in all plants and even in our own bodies.  It was discovered in the 1890s but never made it out of the laboratory…until now.

Zylitol (sometimes spelled xylitol) has quickly become an indispensable item in my kitchen cupboard.  It can replace sugar in everything except breadmaking.  Combine it with raw chocolate powder and coconut oil (two other indispensable items in my kitchen) and you have instant chocolate truffles which are delicious, good for you and incredibly satisfying. (Randhiraj Bilan writes about coconut oil elsewhere on this site - another amazing food which, although a saturated fat, may actually be able to help us lose weight.)

Zylitol is my favourite natural sweetener but it’s not the only one.  Stevia, a South American herb 30 times sweeter than sugar but with zero calories and, like zylitol, also good for our teeth, has been used by the Japanese to sweeten foods and drinks for years.  It is great for quickly sweetening tea, coffee and cereal.  I don’t use it as much as zylitol because I find it leaves a bitter aftertaste in some recipes, but it’s a good standby to have in your cupboard and also makes great lemonade. 

Other useful sweeteners are yacon and agave syrups.  Yacon cannot be absorbed by the body, therefore it has no calories and no effect on blood sugar (but it is a bit bitter, so again it’s not one I use that much).  Agave syrup, derived from the same South American cactus as tequila, has a gorgeous sweet taste rather like golden syrup.  Because it’s so sweet you don’t have to use as much as sugar.  It also, like zylitol, has a low glycemic index, helping us to maintain that all-important blood sugar balance*.

I find that, armed with these products, I can eat as much sweet food as I like without compromising my health.  And interestingly, I actually end up with less cravings because they are so much more satisfying and nutrient rich than the foods laced with sugar, carbohydrates and unhealthy fats we are used to eating.

Liz runs Sweet Sensations, offering private tuition and regular workshops in how to make healthy but scrumptious sweets and desserts.  Her new recipe book is due out in a few months.  For more information contact Liz on 020 8883 7210 or lizbygrave@yahoo.co.uk.  You will shortly be able to find more information on her website www.lizbygrave.co.uk.

*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. Zylitol has a very low glycemic index of 7.