Question About Sweeteners

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rivendweller
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Question About Sweeteners

Post by rivendweller »

Hi!

I know that we should avoid artificial sweeteners, candy and fresh fruits. However, is it okay to put a little local honey in my tea? I think it helps with the pollen allergies around here.

Also, I've been looking at some homemade applesauce recipes, and they call for brown sugar and white sugar. Are these no-no's? I purchased some organic applesauce at the grocery store that is unsweetened, but has ascorbic acid added. I'd rather make my own.

Thanks for the input!

Margaret
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tex
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Post by tex »

Hi Margaret,

The trick with sweeteners seems to be quantity. For me, sugar caused leaky gut, because I ate way too much sugar most of my life. I found that when the time came to pay the fiddler, I had to cut my sugar intake down to a bare minimum. It wasn't that I was sensitive to sugar per se, but rather that I couldn't properly digest large amounts of sugar (due to a loss of the ability to produce the proper enzymes, because of years of uncontrolled enteritis), and so the sugar would ferment in my intestines, causing bloating, gas, cramps, and D.

Not all of us have this problem. The enzymes that split sugars are produced in the brush border region of the small intestine, and when enteritis develops, we begin to lose our production capacity for certain enzymes, beginning with lactase. Lactase is the first enzyme that we lose the ability to produce, and it's the last to be restored as our gut heals and we recover. That's why everyone becomes temporarily lactose-intolerant anytime they have enteritis. Even the flu can cause lactose intolerance. If the enteritis continues long enough, we lose the ability to produce the other enzymes, in sequence. That's why many/most of us have to minimize sugar in our diet during recovery.

The only sugar that I could tolerate in any significant amount while I was recovering, was maple sugar. Apparently, my gut never completely healed, because I still have problems if I eat foods that contain large amounts of sugar, and now, even maple sugar causes D if I overdo it.

I had to learn to drink unsweetened tea, while I was recovering, but our responses vary by the individual. In your case, you should probably be OK with honey, as long as you don't overdo it.

Tex
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It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
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Gloria
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Post by Gloria »

Margaret wrote:I purchased some organic applesauce at the grocery store that is unsweetened, but has ascorbic acid added. I'd rather make my own.
I don't think ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C, would be a problem. Citric acid, however, can be problematic.

Gloria
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rivendweller
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Post by rivendweller »

Thanks, Tex! I will be very careful. Think I will omit the sugar from my homemade applesauce.

Gloria, thank you for the input. I was not sure about ascorbic acid. Usually, I like to go with homemade whenever I can. It tastes so much better!

Margaret
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Post by jgivens »

Oh Margaret,
You are so lucky to live where you can get some apples for applesauce that have not been stuck in cold storage forever. I made applesauce from apples I got in another state last fall, but added sugar. I never will do that again! At least my family can enjoy it. In Michigan our fruit was destroyed by early warming in March and then a crushing frost in May.

I have not had any trouble with the organic unsweetened applesauce and adding a little honey. I have to add honey to get rid of that yucky canned taste of the applesauce. I never have canned applesauce because it gives it such a nasty taste. Frozen applesauce tastes more like the real thing.

I think that Elaine Gotschall in her SCD book Breaking the Vicious Cycle gives a recipe for applesauce made with honey. She tends to use it more liberally than I would.

Good luck in your quest for decent food. My brother called me the other day and was asking what I could eat and I said that it was more like thinking about every good food that I ever ate and eliminating that from my diet. I am sure my resentment towards this will abate in time. I think it is part of the grieving process.
Jane
Diagnosed with Lymphocytic Colitis 12/19/12
"When it gets dark enough,you can see the stars."
Charles A. Beard
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