2011

SWEETENER TASTE-OFF!

Okay, I know you never saw this one coming, particularly from me, originator of the phrase “Retreat from Sweet”, but this month’s topic involves two competing no-calorie sweeteners that both receive the coveted Gundry Seal of Approval when used in moderation.   They are “Just Like Sugar” and SweetLeaf.”  I have my favorite of the two, and my wife Penny’s favorite is the other one and we’ll see if you can guess who likes which one.

Both of these sweeteners use the same ingredient as their base, Inulin, while each add a second ingredient to achieve the “sugar” taste.  So let’s look into Inulin first.

If you remember from Dr Gundry’s Diet Evolution, I am a huge fan of Inulin, which is a Fructooligosaccharide, better know as FOS.  Those of you paying attention will remember that FOS’s are easily remembered as “Friends of Steve.”  FOS’s are complex sugar molecules (fructans) that cannot be digested by human amylase, and hence act like resistant starches (remember FiberGourmet?).  These guys are your gut bacteria’s favorite food and are hence named “Prebiotics”.  Just for confusion, “probiotics” are the actual friendly gut bacteria themselves.  “Antibiotics” are just that: they kill bacteria, including your friendly gut bacteria.   To summarize:  Prebiotics are complex sugars that you can’t digest that feed your gut bacteria (probiotics).

My Diet Evolution contains strong recommendations about the importance of a daily dose of friendly bacteria, usually referred to as PROBIOTICS.  But in the interest of space in the book, the reasons behind their importance to your health was truncated.  Well, now it’s time to get to know your “Old Friends”.

Your intestines contain about 4.4 pounds of microbes, at least 500 of which have been categorized.  While our body has about 100 trillion cells, our gut organisms consist of 1,000 trillion cells.  In fact, the gut flora has 100 times as many genes as our human genome!  Wow!  That’s a lot of computing power rumbling around your gut!  And it’s the amount of that genetic information that has made researchers wonder if there is more to “poop” than meets the eye, so to speak.