Saturday, February 6, 2010

Truvia Post Draws 50 Comments

The post on Truvia and gastric distress has had 50 comments to date. I still don't know why so many people have had a reaction to the product. I suspect that my personal unpleasant experience was due to the erythritol but it could also be due to the unspecified "natural sweeteners."

Since writing the original post, I have discovered that I no longer tolerate significant quantities of fructose. This is a huge challenge in planning meals. I will ask the doctor to test me for fructose intolerance.

Anyway, here is what Cargill says about erythritol:
"Erythritol is an all-natural, non-caloric sweetener, used as an ingredient that provides bulk for the tabletop form of Truvia™ rebiana. Bulking agents are additives that increase the bulk and contribute to the texture of a food. Erythritol has been part of the human diet for thousands of years as it is present in fruits such as pears, melons and grapes, as well as foods such as mushrooms and fermentation-derived foods such as wine, soy sauce and cheese. It is added to foods and beverages to provide sweetness, as well as to enhance taste and texture."
I don't tolerate any of the foods mentioned very well, so I guess I should have done more research before trying something that contained erythritol. Fermented products are a problem for many of us who have allergies to yeast and mold.

Also, the online FAQ for Truvia gives this evasive answer to a question about what are the natural flavors in the product:

"Natural flavors are used to bring out the best of Truvia™'s natural sweetener, like pepper or salt or any other spice that would be used to heighten the taste of food."
Huh, that tells me nothing. Must have been written by a political speechwriter!

1 comments:

erin said...

Interesting. It sounds like the people at Truvia are trying to hide something. It might be worth mentioning that 99.1% of Truvia is erythritol and 9/10 of 1% Rebiana and masking agent. Rebiana is not the same as Reb-A. Rebiana is not an ingredient in the stevia plant and is not found in nature, but is produced by the action of chemicals and stringent alcohols on various stevia glycosides,

Maybe the "natural flavors" is the masking agent. I don't know, but chances are just based on quantity of its ingrdients, it's likely that the reactions are from the erythritol. Cargill has addmitted that 30% of their corn the use to derive the erythritol from is genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Of course, they do seem very evsasive about that question as to what natural flavors are in their product--actually they didn't even answer the question! That makes me wonder if the masking agent (assuming that's what it is) is REALLY bad!

I'll stick with my SweetLeaf stevia