 Sugar alcohols rot in your intestines. Way to go FDA, way to not regulate what's on the front of a package. Guys and gals, if you're going through the grocery store and you look at the front label of a food, did you know that's not regulated by the FDA? What that has to do with sugar alcohols and sugar and carbohydrates in general is pretty big. Because if you flip that label around and you look at the back, you might find that even on the front, if it says only three or four grams of carbs, it actually has a lot more. I'm going to explain how sugar alcohols work and how they really have an effect in the body so that you can make an educated decision on what the best form of food for you is if you're on a low carb diet. Let's talk about what a sugar alcohol is because you might see it on a label from time to time. Sugar alcohol is actually neither a sugar nor an alcohol. It's a hybrid between the two known as a polyol and a polyol is technically a form of carbohydrate in its own classification. It contains about three calories per gram, whereas a carbohydrate contains four calories per gram. So not too much of a difference there to be honest. Now some of them do range. Some of the sugar alcohols like a rithmetol actually only contain about one gram of carb per certain. You've probably seen some of these sugar alcohols before. Some of the more common ones that you've probably seen are going to be things like sorbitol, maltatol, isomalt, or rithrital. There's a few other ones. And not all of them have the same calorie profile or carbohydrate profile. But generally speaking, a rithrital has about one calorie per gram, whereas something like maltatol has three calories per gram. That's where we're talking not much of a difference with what the body metabolizes as a carbohydrate and a sugar alcohol. Now a sugar alcohol is normally found in small, small tiny amounts in berries. But the thing is most of the sugar alcohols that you're getting from the store or getting in your foods are derived from cornstarch. And we're talking from low-quality, genetically modified corn, purely artificial garbage that really doesn't have a place in your body to begin with. So knowing that, why would people ever choose having a sugar alcohol? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Well the thing is sugar alcohols are great for people that are diabetic. Simply because it doesn't trigger a big insulin spike. But it's also good for someone that's on a ketogenic diet or someone that is on a low carb diet in general, simply because you're not having the carbohydrate impact. So we believe. But it's really not the case. You see they still do affect the body. The way that they work is they just don't absorb into the bloodstream all the time. So they'll go from the small intestine, pass through into the colon, and those kind of do their thing there. They don't always absorb right into the bloodstream triggering the carbohydrate insulin response. But there still is a response depending on which sugar alcohol you use. I.e. multital actually triggering a response. And you're going to find that one in a lot of the low carb bars. This incomplete absorption is what throws everything off. Just because it's not completely absorbed doesn't mean that it doesn't affect us later on down the line. So there's a little formulation that you can use to start determining what the actual carb impact is on your body when you consume something that has high amounts of sugar alcohols. Because you really should still be counting those carbs. So here's what you do. You take half the amount of sugar alcohols and subtract that from the total carbohydrates. Here's an example. If you look at the label of one of your sugar free protein bars and it says 20 grams of carbohydrates, 10 grams of sugar alcohols. You're going to take that amount of sugar alcohols, which is 10, cut that in half, which is 5, and subtract that from the total carb amount, leaving you with 15 grams of net carbs. Sorry guys, still 15 grams of carbs in that bar. That's enough to kick you out of ketosis if you're not careful. Let me give you another example so the math totally makes sense. If you have 30 grams of total carbohydrates and then you have 20 grams of sugar alcohols, whereas the label is claiming, hey, there's only 10 grams of effective carbs, totally wrong. Take that 20 grams of sugar alcohols, cut it in half, that's 10, subtract that from the total carbs, which right now is 30. That leaves you with 20 grams of carbs. You have 20 grams of net effective carbs that could be kicking you out of ketosis. But it gets a little bit worse. There's some serious downsides to this stuff. Not only is it bona fide lies, I hope you like being seat belted to the toilet. That's probably what's going to happen. And here's exactly why. Remember how I said it doesn't absorb all the way? It just goes from the small intestine into the large intestine? Well, that lack of absorption damages the intestinal lining. It hurts the endothelial cells, the interocytes, the ones that actually help you absorb food to begin with. And it can damage those. But wait, it gets even worse. So there's something called passive diffusion that happens in the body. This passive diffusion is when you have things like sugar alcohols that draw water into the bowels. They draw water into the small intestine and into the large intestine. This causes first disturbance in your electrolytes, but it also causes a disturbance in your digestive system where it partially breaks down the sugar alcohols. Some of them get digested and excreted, and the rest get left behind to rot. Literally to rot. Yes, sugar alcohols rot in your intestines. And then what ends up happening is you've created a perfect thriving environment for wonderful bacteria to come on in and thrive and just flourish. And make sure you have plenty of bad bacteria and pathogens hanging around in your gut, hence bloating and diarrhea. Next, perfect sense, right? Why on earth would we want to consume these? All in the name of eating low carbs and being healthy, right? Wrong. So if you're someone that's dealing with a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, you're dealing with Candida, you're dealing with yeast issues, probably one of the main things you'd want to be avoiding. I just highly recommend that you're cognizant of the sugar alcohols because it's one of these good old-fashioned food marketing lies. It doesn't work the way that we're told it works, and I'm sorry to drop that bomb on you. You're better off using a bar that already has a low amount of carbs, which doesn't have the sugar alcohols in it. Just have something that's a little less sweet. Have a kind bar that has 14 or 15 grams of carbohydrates rather than having a protein bar that has 30 grams of total carbs and 20 grams of sugar alcohols. Net net, you're at the same amount, but at least you're not getting the intestinal rot. The other one would be like something like an epic bar. Okay, epic bars are basically like a beef jerky kind of bar that has a little bit of berries in it, a little bit of some other foods in there. That's a good option if you're just trying to get some protein in. Laura Bar has some good options as well. I'm not here to tout specific brands. I'm just giving some different examples. You're better off having a few extra carbs than you are not absorbing and inhibiting the absorption of good minerals and nutrients that you need in the rest of the day. All right, my drop rant done. Comment. You're probably going to get upset with me. I'll see you in the next video.