"Marina" wrote in message
...
On 27/11/2010 03:20, John F. Eldredge wrote:
On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 22:16:56 +0000, bastXXXette wrote:

Marina wrote:

I didn't have soft drinks very often as a child, because I got
diabetes at age 5 and the only sugar-free soft drink on the Finnish
market at that time was a disgusting pineapple-flavoured drink that
I
think was sweetened with fructose. So it definitely wasn't a good
drink for a thirsty diabetic,

I thought fructose was as bad as, if not worse than, table sugar is for
diabetics. There weren't any artificial sweeteners available? When I was
a kid, there was saccharine, at least. Which was pretty gross, but was
at least an option if you couldn't have sugars.

Joyce

Fructose is sometimes suggested as an alternative to table sugar, for
those not wanting to use table sugar, artificial sweeteners, or to do
without a sweet taste. It has a sweeter taste than an equivalent amount
of sucrose, so you can get by with a lesser amount of it. If you use the
same quantity of fructose as you would of sucrose, however, it spikes
your blood sugar just as badly as sucrose will.


I've always been told it has a lower GI than sucrose, so it will not spike
your BG as quicly as ordinary sugar. (OK, they didn't talk about glycemic
index when I was a kid, but of slow, medium, and fast carbohydrates, but
it's the same basic idea.) I do use a teaspoon of it every day, with my
berries and plain yoghurt.

Fructose is pretty much one half of the sucrose "table sugar" molecule (the
other half being glucose). Therefore, gram for gram, or teaspoon for
teaspoon, fructose is almost twice as sweet as the equivalent amount of
suscrose, whilst delivering half the energy value (joules, calories)

Whilst sweeter than sucrose, the sensation of sweetness of fructose comes on
quicker and leaves quicker than the sweetness sensation of sucrose, and its
sweetness decreases on heating.

Yowie
(here endeth the chemistry lesson)