Subject: [Sca-cooks] AlternaSweet?

[Philippa Alderton]

--- Randy Goldberg MD <goldberg at bestweb.net> wrote:

> > I can tolerate Nutrasweet- until Margali turned me
> on
> > to Splenda, that had been my sugar substitute of
> > choice, on those rare occasions when I drank diet
> > anything, but I actually can't tell the difference
> > between Splenda and regular sugar when I've used
> it in
> > foods, so I'm happy to use it for
> something
> > for Margali. I did do a taste test, with it plain,
> vs
> > some real sugar, and it seemed to me that the
> Splenda
> > was somewhat sweeter per volume, so I've just made
> a
> > mental note to use less when I sub it in a normal
> > recipe.

> Can you bake with Splenda? Does it have the same
> kitchen properties as
> regular sugar?

Baking with it is fine- if you remember, I used it as
the granulated sugar in my chocolatl chip cookies, so
there'd be fewer carbs in them for Margali's low-carb
diet, and, discussing it tonight, she'd told me that
it worked well in any other baking type recipe she's
used. It comes in both the packets like the ones you
see in restaurants, and in bulk, like regular sugar.
Using it in hot drinks is fine too. But, you can't use
it in candy- the temps are high enough, I presume,
that it breaks it down into non-preferred fractions,
because Margali said that it wouldn't imitate sugar's
texture and chemical properties in that sort of thing.

I just checked on the box, and it recommended adding
it at the end of cooking, where applicable, so that
also leads me to suspect chemical breakdown at higher
temps

> > It's kinda like the great vitamin hustle- if
> you're
> > basicly healthy and eating a varied and reasonably
> > well-balanced diet to begin with, vitamin
> supplements
> > will either poison you if they're one of the ones
> you
> > can't easily excrete, or be excreted, if you take
> them
> > in excess of your bodily needs. Either way,
> Madison
> > Avenue has sold another product.

> *BINGBINGBING* We have a winner! I *WISH* I could
> get my patients to
> understand this! Of course, 90-odd percent of
> Americans DON'T get a
> sufficiently balanced diet, so I do believe a
> multi-vitamin (ONE tablet,
> thank you) every day isn't a bad idea for most
> folks.

Yeah. I normally eat a balanced and varied diet, but
there are times when I haven't been able to for a
while, so I'll take a daily vitamin for a few days.

Normally, though, I'll eat what looks good, figuring
my body knows what it needs, so, for example, the last
few days I've been eating very little meat, but I've
been eating a fair amount of bananas, avacados, apple
cider, milk, bread, and rice, and some, but not a lot,
of green veggies.

I figure, our bodies evolved over millions of years,
and they evolved to eat available foods. If we really
needed mega doses of chemical vitamin supplements,
we'd have died out quite a while ago ;-) And, knowing
as I do, how effective our biological feedback systems
are, if you have a taste for something, chances are
there's something in it your body wants more of.

Phlip

=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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