Easy Sugar Free Recipes

Cutting back on sugar is not easy for anyone. There are sugar substitutes on the market that taste almost like sugar. Nutrasweet, Splenda, xylitol all taste a lot like sucrose sweetener; and there are proven problems with the use of sucrose, aspartame, saccharine that make some of the newer alternatives something to be tried in moderation. I've forgotten about mallitol. What is mallitol other than a sweetener, something used in industrial manufacture that also has a laxative effect. Stevia has a licorice flavor, which adds to recipes such as those that call for licorice or anise flavors, however, stevia might detract from the flavor of sugar-free key lime pie, sugar-free mint tea or sugar-free vanilla meringues.

Dextrose is an easier sugar to break down in the human body, I looked up what dextrose is in Grolier's Encyclopedia, it is merely glucose. I became scared when seeing dextrose on a label at the level of 1 gram per serving in a baking mix, and called up customer service. I was instructed to look at the label of the"health food" variety of the product, and discovered that this version of the product has 3 grams per serving of sugars, both dextrose and sucrose. Look on the label when you purchase a product, a lot of products have hidden benefits, others have hidden sugars. By the way, this is the Bisquick pancake mix by General Mills, which has 1 gram of dextrose in it, and the "Heart Healthy" variety of Bisquick is the version to watch out for, containing 3 grams of sugar, namely sucrose mixed in with the dextrose, per serving. Baking mixes are fun to use in a variety of ways, and can be cooked on the stove top, in the microwave, in the oven, and these pancake or waffle mixes will create something hot and edible, if a bit bland, when prepared with water and a little cooking oil or butter.

However, there are many ways of adding flavor and more sweetness to a baking mix, these range from sugar-free chocolate shavings and sugar-free minced peppermint patties, to sugar-free syrups, such as Log Cabin, Mrs. Butterworth's or Torani.