What Actually Happens With Sugar Alcohols
Sugar alcohols are only partly absorbed in the small intestine, and the part that is not absorbed carries on into the colon.
Once there, two things happen. The unabsorbed sugar alcohol draws water into the bowel by osmosis, and gut bacteria ferment it, which produces gas. That combination is the bloating, the cramping and the urgency, in that order, and it is dose dependent rather than a matter of personal sensitivity.
- Maltitol, the most common in candy, and the most digested of the group
- Sorbitol, which carries an FDA laxative warning threshold
- Xylitol, well known in gum, and dangerous to dogs
- Erythritol, the best absorbed and usually the gentlest
- Isomalt, common in hard candy
The FDA takes this seriously enough to require a laxative effect warning on foods where reasonably foreseeable sorbitol intake is likely to exceed 50 grams a day, and for mannitol at 20 grams. Those thresholds exist because the effect is predictable.
The word alcohol is a chemistry term here, not an ingredient warning. Sugar alcohols contain no ethanol. The problem is absorption, not intoxication.
Why Allulose Behaves Differently
Allulose is absorbed in the small intestine and then largely excreted unchanged, so far less of it reaches the colon to be fermented.
The Absorption Difference Is The Whole Story
Sugar alcohols mostly do not get absorbed. Allulose mostly does. Everything you feel afterwards follows from that one sentence.
The Good Candy Crew
It is a rare sugar, found naturally in small amounts in figs, raisins and wheat. Structurally it is close enough to fructose to taste like sugar and behave like sugar in cooking, and different enough that the body does not extract much energy from it.
That difference is recognised on the label. The FDA permits allulose to be excluded from total and added sugars on the Nutrition Facts panel, which is not a courtesy the agency extends to sweeteners generally.
Is Allulose Just Better Then?
Not universally, and it is worth being straight about the trade-offs.
Allulose is considerably more expensive than maltitol, which is the main reason the category defaulted to sugar alcohols in the first place. It also browns more readily than sugar, which matters in baking and rarely in gummies.
- Cost, which is why the category defaulted the other way
- Browning behaviour, which matters in baking more than in candy
- Its own threshold for discomfort, which is simply much higher
It is not calorie free either, although it contributes very little usable energy. And in large amounts it can cause some digestive discomfort of its own. The difference is one of degree and threshold, not a claim that allulose is inert.
What is fair to say is that at the doses found in a normal bag of candy, the two sweeteners produce very different experiences, and that difference is the reason the sugar free category has the reputation it has.
How To Tell Which One Is In The Bag
The ingredient list, not the front of the pack. It takes about five seconds.
The Five Second Scan
Anything ending in -itol is a sugar alcohol. Maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, isomalt and lactitol are the ones you will meet. If the bag also carries a warning about excess consumption having a laxative effect, that is your confirmation.
Allulose is listed as allulose, sometimes as D-allulose or psicose. Monk fruit appears as monk fruit extract or luo han guo. Neither of them ends in -itol, which makes the scan fast once you know what you are looking for.
Fiber is worth a glance in the same pass, because added fiber can produce mild versions of the same fermentation effect at high doses. The FDA maintains a defined list of dietary fibers that can be declared, and a moderate amount is the point rather than a maximum.
Why We Left Them Out Entirely
We looked at the category, saw that the single most common complaint about better-for-you candy was digestive, and treated that as the brief.
Good Candy has no sugar alcohols in it at all. The sweetness comes from non-GMO cane sugar cut by 70 percent by weight against an average sour gummy, with allulose, monk fruit and prebiotics doing the rest of the work.
Which also means we are not a sugar free candy, and we are not going to describe ourselves as one. There is cane sugar in the bag. What there is not is the class of sweetener that causes the problem this whole post is about.
That decision costs more per bag and it is the reason we can be specific about how the candy behaves rather than vague about it.
What This Means Next Time You Shop
One line of the ingredient list predicts most of what you will feel two hours later.
If the sweetener ends in -itol, expect a dose-dependent chance of bloating, and expect it to scale with how much of the bag you eat. If it is allulose or monk fruit, that particular risk is much lower.
Everything else on the front of the bag is downstream of that choice. Sugar free tells you what was removed. The ingredient list tells you what was put in its place, and that is the part that decides your afternoon.
