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Fun fact: there exists a chiral mirror of sugar called L-sucrose which tastes and cooks exactly like sugar but is not bioavailable. It's the ultimate 0 calorie sugar. The only issue is it costs like 200 bucks a gram to produce.



Another issue is that it can cause osmotic diarrhea since it essentially stays in the intestines.


My god, this is amazing. I don't even know why I didn't think something like this may exist even though we all studied isomers in school. Are there other flavouring agents that use non-bioavailable isomers that pass right through us?

This is so fun to have learned about!


It was done with cooking oil at one time. Problem is it gave most of the test subjects diarrhea after eating a bag of potato chips that were fried in it. Of course anyone that eats a bag of potato chips is at risk of that anyway...


“eats a bag of potato chips is at risk of that anyway.”

I can do that easily and will do so if somebody gives me a bag of chips. It’s not even a challenge ;)



> Of course anyone that eats a bag of potato chips is at risk of that anyway...

Infinitesimally larger than when eating just about anything else.


God damn it. That happens to me with Xylitol and Maltitol. Guess I just have to suck it up and not eat sweet stuff.


Are those sugar alcohols the only ones giving you trouble? Did you get tested for Fructose malabsorption?


Interesting, but that sounds like a thing I wouldn't want to treat! Less fatness eh?

Yeah, they are the ones that give me trouble.


I replied to your post because I started having similar troubles, went to the doc and I tested positive in several issues, being the main one that I have Fructose intolerance.

That was when I learned about FODMAP, and I learned about the work Monash University is doing on that field: https://www.monashfodmap.com/

Hope that helps, but better if you don't need them!


Very cool. Thank you for sharing!


You're welcome!


No need for that. You can buy xylitol (a sugar alcohol) for a fraction of the price. This isn't metabolized either. As with similar substances, using too much induces an osmotic effect with predictable consequences.




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