Sweeteners

[lovmelovmycats.livejournal.com]

My posts will probably concern diet more than exercise, since I'm on weight watchers (again), and don't have a structured exercise plan. But who knows? Maybe that'll change.

Sweeteners!
I'm into 100% juice juices, which are nice, but still rather high in calories. Ryan drinks scary amounts of diet soda. I try to buy him equal amounts of aspartamine-sweetened and sucralose-sweetened ones, on the theory that it's better to mix his poisons to avoid overdose of one. But then, in the end, he's probably getting too much of both.
I drink more diet soda (and diet energy drinks! Gah!) than I ought to, as well.

Also, I like to bake. So far, I've just thrown diet-caution to the wind, and used copious amounts of sugar- on the theory that sweet treats are for sharing, so I won't be taking in that much just on my own. (And my biscotti recpie is easy, rather naturally low-fat, and delicious!)

I had lunch recently with a friend, who described a sugar-free cake she made for friends who had given up refined sugars (basically, the solid sugars: white, brown, maple). She used maple syrup and agave, I think she said. And it turned out awesome. So I was intruigued by that.

I don't like the taste of honey very much. I just sweetened my yogurt with it, and didn't like it until I added blueberries, which covered up the taste. I find unsweetened blueberries to be delightfully sweet and not too sour. I love sour tastes, except for rhubarb, and unsweetened yogurt.

So, fit geek friends: What are your sweetness experiences? Do you have any favorite resources, recipes, websites? Anybody here tried stevia?

Edit: Inspired by this post (and the fact that it's cold and rainy here), I made a batch of biscotti, but tried to make it more healthful, with egg-beaters, a little whole wheat flour, a little oat bran, a little less sugar, and a bit of honey- I left out an egg to account for the viscosity of the honey. It smells good... we shall see. If it's edible, it's going to the Obama campaign office.

Comments

[mithriltabby]

I am a supertaster and frequently find that beverages sweetened with aspartame or sucralose don’t taste sweet to me at all— they taste more like kerosene smells to me. This is probably due to my taste buds getting overloaded, as I’ve occasionally been surprised to find things with a small concentration (some of those flavored waters) actually tasting sweet. A couple of exceptions I’ve found:

• Minute Maid Light Lemonade is only trying to be tart, not sweet, and I find it quite palatable.
• Citrus-flavored Torani syrups sweetened with sucralose work well in frozen drinks; when the shaved ice is melting on my tongue, it numbs enough of the taste buds that it tastes relatively sweet to me.

[lovmelovmycats.livejournal.com]

That is very interesting! Do you have a keen sense of smell, too?
I also like the Minute Maid Light Lemonade.

[mithriltabby]

For some things. I can smell a litterbox that needs scooping long before my wife can, but she can smell mildew much better than I can.