Also, Levosugars: huh?

[learnedax]

Years ago I heard and for a long time believed that sucralose was the left-handed version of glucose,* rather than the chlorine-doped sucrose it actually is. That explains why it doesn't taste precisely like sugar, though it is a relatively close approximation. It also raises questions about its breakdown producing free chlorine, since it is not clear whether it gets partially metabolized.

But anyway, my real interest is in levorotatory sugars (L sugars bend light left where D sugars bend light right, you see) : is it true that they would react chemically like regular sugars but not lock in with the appropriate enzymes to be metabolized? Gilbert Levin (what an appropriate name) of Spherix seems to strongly argue that this is the case... but, despite their literature mentioning frequently his quest for a usable left-handed sugar, their sweetener product is D-tagatose, which just happens to be chemically similar to L-fructose (i.e. the normal kind). Since levosugars are so expensive to produce, it was much more commercially viable for him to make tagatose, which is similar enough to fructose to fool the body into mostly not digesting it.

But wait, because here's where I get confused. Fructose is already a dead common left-handed sugar, which ought to be metabolized less than tagatose. In fact, high-fructose corn syrup has already replaced regular sucrose in the majority of commercial products (because it's cheaper, but nevermind why). So that's a good thing, right? Except everything I can find on high-fructose corn syrup decries the horrors of fructose, precisely because it's metabolized poorly. So, then... huh?

If it was economically feasible, would L-glucose be the magic bullet, or not?

*Which I thought of as sinistrose, by extension from dextrose. For some unclear reason there are two latinate roots, and the chosen one is laevus, so we get levulose - which is of course actually fructose, not L-glucose. Perfectly clear.**

**Ok, it actually does make a certain sense since sucrose breaks down into dexrose and levulose.

Comments

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

The artificial sweeteners seem to pose nasty health problems, as well as tasting nasty. Donald Rumsfeld got aspartame FDA approved for personal profit despite some significant evidence of its dangers; saccharin only recently lost its mandatory warning because it's no longer strongly linked to cancer; it's unclear what the health effects are of acesulfame potassium, though it may be relatively safe; stevia may cause impotence, and metabolizes into a mutagen.

So, yeah, wood sugars like sorbitol seem to be a better bet.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I don't think Stevia counts as an artificial sweetener because it comes directly from a plant... but I think it also tastes vile. I really can't imagine putting it in anything other than a strong tea because it has such an intensely herbal flavor.

At least I don't have to worry about impotence :)