What is Erythritol?

Erythritol is a sugar substitute that is NO sugar, low carb, easy to use and will NOT affect your blood sugar levels if you are a Diabetic. Perfect for sticking to your Keto diet!

What is Erythritol?

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol that contains almost no calories, is low carb, does not affect your blood sugar and does not cause tooth decay.

Though erythritol is a sugar alcohol, it has nothing to do with drinking alcohol.  Other sugar alcohols include xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, lactitol, and maltitol, many of which show up on the labels of all sorts of sugar-free products.

I would not be exaggerating if I said erythritol was an “almost” perfect sugar substitute for anyone who is diabetic or is on a low carb or ketogenic diet.

Check out the chemical formula for Erythritol on Wikipedia.

What Is The Downside Of Erythritol?

Erythritol can cause side effects including diarrhea, stomach discomfort and headaches in some people. This often happens if you consume it in large quantities. The solution to this can be to start with very small quantities and let your body get used to it.

The Perfect Sugar Taste

Though erythritol can be used by itself as a sugar substitute (it is 70% to 90% as sweet as sugar) many people prefer to mix it with several other sweeteners to achieve that perfect sugar taste.  There are several name brand products that use erythritol as the main ingredient including the THM sweeteners and Swerve.

Erythritol is great mixed with xylitol and stevia   or skip the xylitol and simply add some stevia.  Both of these combinations are great in both cooking and baking.

Why Erythritol DOES NOT Affect Your Blood Sugar Levels

When you ingest Erythritol  it is quickly absorbed into the small intestine where the majority of it (90%) is expelled  through your urine. Basically, Erythritol moves through your body undigested, thus not affecting your metabolism and not affecting your blood glucose levels.

For Diabetics

I am Diabetic and have struggled for years to find sugar substitutes that do not skyrocket my blood sugar readings. My favorite sweetener is Stevia, BUT Stevia is more than a challenge to cook and bake with.  Erythritol solves all the baking problems because it acts almost like sugar by browning baked goods and acting like a thickener in sauces and cooking.

Though I have been known just to dip into my erythritol container, I most often make my own sweetener blends.  If you are familiar with the THM eating plan and recipes … here are copycat recipes for  their super sweet blend and their gentle sweet blend.  It literally takes minutes and saves your dollars for other low carb products that can’t be cloned.

Thin Healthy Mama (THM)

Erythritol is one of the main ingredients of both of the THM (Trim Healthy Mama) branded sweetener blends.  You can save a lot of money by purchasing Erythritol, Xylitol and Stevia in bulk and making your own THM copycat blends.

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Where Can You Find Erythritol?

You most likely cannot find erythritol, xylitol or pure stevia powder in your local groceries, so you’ll want to order it online.  Here are some links to Amazon.

This small 2+ pound packages will give you enough for testing.

This five pound package will last most people 3 – 6 months.

If you go through multiple pounds of Erythritol, consider ordering in bulk.  Bulk supplements is the best price for order over 5 kilograms!

1 kilogram is just over 2 pounds. If you look at the right hand side bar on the product page you will see a link for  5 kilograms (11 pounds)and 25 kilograms (55 pounds).   This link is for 25 kilograms — the absolute best price deal.

If you just want to experiment …  order these small quantities and do some testing:

Prices and images pulled from the Amazon Product Advertising API on:

Sweetener Blend Recipes:

THM Sweet Blend Clones

SFZ Sweetener Blend

Be sure to check out these articles:

What is Xylitol?

What is Stevia?