Is Allulose a Good Sugar Alternative?

Hey, it's J.J. here.

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Is Allulose a Good Sugar Alternative? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Francois from Instagram asks, is allulose a good sugar alternative? Hey, it's JJ and today I've got integrative medicine practitioner and researcher Dr. David Brady with me to answer this question. He has a super fun position as the medical Director of FX Chocolates. This is a fair trade dark chocolate with therapeutic amounts of targeted nutrients. If you want a delicious way to take your supplements, FX Chocolate is keto, sugar free and makes you feel great. And when David's not seeing patients or advising on chocolate, he can be found.

Drumming with his rock and roll band.

We'll be right back with the answer. Stay tuned.

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You know, I've been involved in the practice of clinical nutrition and nutritional medicine for about 30 years and for a good 20 years of that, I've been involved in the, the design, the testing and the manufacturing of nutritional supplements, nutraceuticals and other natural therapeutic agents. So we've had to deal with how to get products that taste good, that are good for you without putting in a lot of sugar affecting insulin and blood sugar and obesity, but at the same time not relying on just the tricks that the general food industry does, which is to use chemicals and to use artificial sweeteners. So we've been on this quest for decades of finding healthy sugar alternatives that make things taste sweet and taste good, but are good for you. And we've had many different options through the years. And some of those, you know, have been better than others. They all have their pros and cons, but we've been through, you know, things like stevia. And stevia, when it first came out was interesting and that had a very bitter aftertaste. And note to it, stevias have gotten much better through the years. They've made their molecular weight smaller and smaller and they act better on the taste buds. So stevia's gotten pretty good. But you know, some people just are super tasters to stevia and they still get that kind of weird taste sensation when they, when they use stevia. There's monk fruit or Lohan and other sort of plant based sweeteners. And they have some of their virtues. They're difficult to work with in certain types of products. They have different abilities to stand up to heat and mixing and agitation and the like. And some people are supertasters of monk fruit as well. And then you also get into expense, right, if something may taste good, doesn't have an aftertaste and may work, but it's colossally expensive, it makes the price of products too high. So we're always looking for that sweet Spot, no pun intended. And allulose is really a good option because allulose is natural. It's mainly found in fruits like jackfruit, it's in figs, it's in some other fruits and berries and the like. And the human body does not make the enzymes to break down allulose. So allulose has a couple of different fructose molecules in it, but the body doesn't break it down to expose the fructose. So it doesn't really do much in the human body. It doesn't create a glucose response or a blood sugar response. It doesn't alter your insulin levels, it doesn't foster insulin sensitivity. But one thing that's really great about it is it gives you the sweetness like you're eating sugar, basically. But it doesn't have the same metabolic effects, negative effects, as sugar does. And it doesn't have that weird aftertaste that some of the other natural alternative sweeteners do. It's easy to work with and easy to have. Mix into products. And what you absorb of the allulose, 90% or greater, is excreted in the urine, through the kidneys. So you never even know. It just kind of passes through you. But on the way, it provides the sweetness. But as we've studied allulose more and more, we found out that it actually has other functional benefits that we never even realized in the beginning. One of the problems of some of the alternative sweeteners known as polyols or alcohol sugars, is that they can get in the intestines and the bacteria there can ferment them. And you get gas. You can get gas and bloating and things like that. Allulose doesn't do that. It has a very low fermentability in the gut, so it doesn't get fermented. But it also suppresses what's called a brush border enzyme that humans make in their intestine called alpha glucosidase. So this brush border enzyme helps pull apart starches and carbohydrates in other foods, and it allows us to absorb the sugars. Starches, carbohydrates more. So if you have a food or a substance with allulose in it and you consume it, any other glucose, starch and carbohydrates that are around, you're going to lower the body's ability to absorb them. So again, you're going to impact in a positive way to blood sugar and insulin. So not only does it not. Does allulose not produce the sugar or insulin alteration it actually lowers the potential of of normal dietary sugars to do so. So it's a really, it's a win win. So we're really excited about allulose and it's the reason we use that as the main sweetener in the FX chocolate offerings.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to to subscribetoj.com.

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