Xylitol appears to be a good alternative to sugar, with a positive effect on dental health and a better taste than stevia. Side effects, such as diarrhea and flatulence, are minor and allegedly subside after repeated use. Despite these benefits, I find it difficult to find non-biased information and recent scientific studies from US sources. It seems to be much better known in Europe, especially Finland where it is as common as fluoride use in the States.
What are the reasons for this? Is there really a silencing conspiracy by the sugar and corn lobbies? Some say even dentists want to stop the spread of xylitol because it would put them out of work. (This sounds a little far fetched to me. I can’t imagine the dental industry is that corrupt as a whole.)
I’m a dentist and am okay with xylitol. Generally when it comes to teeth, anything that replaces sugar and can’t be metabolized by the oral bacteria is fine with me.
I wasn’t aware of any “conspiracy.” If you’re going on what you find from internet searches, well, all I can say is no matter what you search for you’ll find all manner of charlatans and woo peddlers.
I personally have had issues with some sugar alcohols (e.g. maltitol) causing me to be, er, a faucet, so I avoid most of them now. Whatever they use in sugar-free Slurpees causes me half a day of rumbling and burbling, so those are off the list too.
Also, as dropzone says, it tastes minty. I found a recipe to make brownies with xylitol. It was horrible.
Xylitol is easy to find. Every health food store has bags of it, and xylitol gum. You don’t see advertising for it because no one company owns it. Stevia is patented by one company, so they benefit from advertising it.
Stevia is not patented, and can not be patented. It’s a naturally occurring plant genus. Anyone can sell it, anyone can advertise it.
The only patents pertaining to Stevia that i am aware of are for processes to extract the sweet stevioside/rebaudiside compounds. So long don’t extract those compounds, or do so using on one of the thousands of non-patented extraction processes, you are just fine.
I have no idea if Stevia is patented, but there is nothing preventing use patents for natural products. The pharmaceutical industry does it all the time. Levostatin is one example. You cannot find you own way to extract of produce that and sell it as a drug to lower cholesterol.
No, it isn’t. The onlypatent for Lovistatin that had any commercial application was one for the production of the compound from a specific species grown in liquid media from which the compound was isolated using a solvent and chromotography. IOW it wasn’t the compound that was patented, it was the production process.
Anyone was, and always has been, free to produce and market lovostatin from the numerous other species that produce it, or to produce it from the same species by growing them on solid media. The product was never patented because it could not be patented.
Of course you can. You just can’t do it using a single species grown in liquid medium and using solvent and chromotography for the isolation and extraction process. Use another species, use a solid medium or use something other than solvents and chromotography for the extraction and and you can sell it to your heart’s content.
