Monkfruit- why doesn't anyone talk about this sweetener?

(Jim) #21

Dogfish Head just released a low-carb IPA that uses monk fruit. It’s called Slightly Mighty. I’ve been trying to find it but still no luck.

#22

You can buy dried monk fruit in most Chinese supermarkets, at least here in the UK. It’s usually in a packet of 2-3 fruit and costs around £1.50.

The shop assistant told me to wash the outer shell, then break the whole thing up into small pieces, using the shell as well as the seeds inside. Then you boil it in a small amount of water, about a cup per fruit. Actually I use a small slow cooker for this. This makes a dark brown very sweet liquid/syrup which keeps in the fridge for about a week.

It tastes great in coffee, but not in tea. It’s also good on pancakes etc.

(Bunny) #23

Monkfruit is the best!

(Starr Stern) #24

my monk sugar says in a teasponn which is 4 grams am geting 4 grams erhytinol so where the monk ?

(B Creighton) #25

In the Volupta erythritol/monk fruit sweetener I buy from Costco, I think there is only enough monk fruit sprayed on the granules to make it as sweet as table sugar, which is hardly anything. Nevertheless, it is enough to reduce the amount of erythritol I have to use, and I like the taste. We buy this when it is on sale at Costco - usually for around $6 for a 3 lb bag, so reasonably cheap. When Kroger stopped selling the Simple Truth Allulose syrup in my area, I bought several bottles of the Lakanto syrup using monk fruit, and I like it just fine. I really hardly ever use it since I typically only use it on French toast a couple times per year. However, there are a few recipes which call for honey or syrup, which we may use it on.

#26

If you don’t like the liquids, take a look at this one, it’s pure monk fruit extract, not granules but a fine powder. Until I started getting this I didn’t get why Monkfruit was always cut with something, it’s SWEET! Bag doesn’t look like much, but it’s 450 servings, 1/8th a tsp is equal to 1tsp sugar sweetness.

(Bob M) #27

Thanks for that! I’ve put it in my cart.

(Robin) #28

Hmmm…. You have convinced me to give this a go.

(B Creighton) #29

So, I got this exact monkfruit, and want to give my opinion on it after making some keto brownies with it. It does not solubalize readily, so to stir it in, you are going to want to sprinkle it over a wide surface area. It is not going to mix in readily like the erithrytol sweetener I use. It also seems to cause at least stevia to not taste sweet while it is in your mouth. You will not want to use it together with stevia imho. It may have this effect with some other sweeteners - I don’t know. But, for instance while my brownie is in my mouth, if I drink my stevia sweetened lemonade, it doesn’t taste sweet until my palate is cleared. It also does have a little aftertaste - not bad - but it may not taste great with certain foods. However, for most foods, it is not enough aftertaste to be noticeable to me.
Do I recommend it? The stevia I use is actually much sweeter, and therefore cheaper. For instance one 2 oz bottle(I get for $6) will sweeten hundreds of cups of my lemonade. But, if you don’t like stevia, I think this is a good option - certainly far preferable to using sugar. We’ll see how it stores.

#30

I’ve never used it in baking, but when mixing with anything, I always try to mix it with the liquid. IIRC Monkfruit is 200x the sweetness of sugar where Stevia is 300x, so stevia is sweeterer, but my issue with Stevia is (to me at least) is it doesn’t taste like sugar. But we’re all different there.

(B Creighton) #31

Well, stevia can have some drawbacks. I’ve learned that the stevia leaf is actually high in oxalates, and can pass this quality onto powdered forms of stevia. Natural stevia also has a somewhat unpleasant aftertaste. I use stevia drops which remove the steviosides, and the remaining rabaudiosides are even sweeter. I use only 8 drops to sweeten 16 oz drinks.

#32

My guess is,not many keto/paleo folks are using sweeteners.

Sweeteners can be gateway drugs to many -and they can fool the body/brain to think there is sugar coming in.

#33

I don’t think so as I saw tons of extremely sweetened keto recipes… Of course, it doesn’t mean that most keto folks use sweetener, just that there are lots of keto sweet dessert recipes… :thinking: I still don’t think many people can stop eating sweet stuff, I almost surely never will and I love carnivore when I manage to stick to it…
The new ketoers probably make sweet stuff. The veterans can go to different directions. Some people seem to cling to their sweetened drinks and baked goods while others are fine without even sweet things let alone sweetened ones.

Dogs has it bad with xylitol, their body truly gets tricked, dangerously and potentially fatally. Mine don’t and I never saw any problem and even needed my sweeteners every day in the beginning (until carnivore). Many people have problems with sweeteners indeed while others not, possibly in the contrary. I definitely won’t add back added sugar so if I want something really sweet, it usually must be some kind of sweetener. I always considered it a good practice to keep it to the minimum though. Sweetener isn’t food. But if one eats cake for breakfast and dessert after every other meal, I have nothing against that, it’s their prerogative if it works well for them. Cake doesn’t mean unhealthy food, after all. At least not for everyone, of course it is for some, no matter what (unless we define ‘cake’ in some very unusual way but most don’t).

Sweet desserts in general may pose a problem for people like me with a desire for them and an impressive dessert stomach… And whatever sweet things do to trigger wanting even more sweet things (it can be the same very low-carb food too but it’s still not necessarily okay). Sometimes it works out, sometimes not, depending on many things.

So, I used sweeteners. I almost never mentioned monkfruit as I can’t get it here in anything. I tasted it once when got some sweets from Australia. It was the worst tasting food item ever, hands down, not counting spoiled ones but counting burned ones. I have this with all super sweet sweeteners, somehow I taste them weird and awful more like sweet (but they are usually sweet alright. stevia feels less sweet than supposed to).
I can eat sugar alcohols and sugars, they taste much more normal. Taste and sweetness level of sweeteners are both quite individual, it may be very different even for the same person at different times (and I don’t mean sweet perception changes due to quitting added sugar and maybe even all very sweet things).

#34

I mostly meant that sweeteners can start psychological cravings for the real thing. Taste you know.

A famous finnish singer,good friend of mine, tried non-alcoholic beer after being sober for many years.

He ended up in rehab within less than a month.

#35

Yes, they can do many things. I never would crave sugar but I never missed it while others do for some reason. My sweets with sweeteners are the real thing to me, the sugary ones are some unfortunate highly inferior items, yuck (even if they are sometimes tasty. usually borderline or truly inedibly sweet though but I have my methods. I just rarely see the point to use them as it’s easy to make highly delicious and much better keto sweets). But fancying more sweets (if I use the sweeteners like that, otherwise I am pretty safe), that may happen (it’s nothing like with carby sweets in my past though). I do love sweet desserts, just don’t need them in the end of every meal anymore.