Sugar-Free Candy
Russel Stover’s candy in a variety of flavors for not to much of expensive price – and it is uses something called alcohol sugars to sweeten it. Woot! So, not sure if I had mentioned it or not, but I have been working on loosing weight. Well, I am sure I have mentioned that. The thing I am not so sure about is the diet I am loosely following. Mostly it is just an eat sensible kind of approach, which is hard enough to do. But addition to watching calories consumed in a day, I am also trying to keep carbs, especially those that are not from whole grains at a lower level and especially trying to keep sugar (of all forms from simple to complex) at a low-level. I will go into more detail about that sometime in the near future, I promise, but suffice it to say that calories are energy, more energy then you need and you gain weight, less and you lose. Carbs and especially sugars are loaded with calories and tend to have the worst effects on your body too.
Anyway, try watching your carbs and sugar intakes and you will quickly realize, that especially the sugar is in everything, often in amazing quantities. Corn syrup being one of the major culprits of course, but it really goes much beyond just that. You will find in everything that is remotely processed and the most odd places. Take for instance a salad dressing – almost assured if not specifically noted, it will have a good deal of sugar. So will ketchup. And I will just refrain from mentioning any kind of baked product, including even simple white bread. Check out some of the microwave type of dinner/lunches and if not careful in choosing some are just loaded with sugars. However, none of these foods cause me to much problem – I can live without some without any big issue and on others, with careful consideration of labels can limit exposure.
My one weakness though? I like a bit of chocolate every now and then. I am in pretty good shape though, as dark chocolate, by its very nature, tends toward more pure chocolate and less milk and sugar. The higher the percentage on the chocolate generally the less sugar and such. Of course some chocolate is great, but give me a bit of chocolate with some peanut butter or toffee and it is nearly heaven, especially on a bad computer day at the office.
Well, the other day when specifically spending some time looking around I came across the perfect cure for that one addiction. Russel Stover’s candies makes a variety of candies, mostly chocolate based, but no all of them, that is all sugar-free. I think the primary market is at the diabetic, which lets be honest a moment, if I do not get weight down at some point I am probably headed there. So, I decided after looking at the label to give them try.
Amazingly enough I thought they were pretty good and really I could not tell all that much difference and certainly there was no off aftertaste or anything. See, when looking at the label I noted that instead of using some kind of artificial sweetener, which generally I do not care for and think most border on poison anyway, it uses something called alcohol sugars to get its sweet flavor.
Oddly enough though, alcohol sugars, despite the name, are neither alcoholic or sugar in any form. They do release some energy into the body when they are absorbed and processed, but it is very minute compared to any form of sugar and it is done so over a much slower time period if I understand the processing correctly.
Anyway, my hats off to Russel Stover for making such and making them widely available at a price that is only slightly higher than normal candy. Additionally, they are individually wrapped, which is good, as they are still up there a bit in the carbs, but a couple of pieces a day is probably just fine.
** – Image from russellstover.com.
