Sweet Talk: Why We’re Low Sugar

So, how do we make snacks and treats that are actually good for you? At ENLIGHTENED, we pride ourselves on the high protein and low sugar content of our ice cream. We’re able to make it nutritious and actually delicious!

 

What we don’t do is load our ice cream with artificial ingredients and sweeteners. Some common artificial sweeteners you might recognize (but will never find on our nutrition label) include aspartame, sucralose, and saccharin. The sweeteners we choose are all naturally-occuring. We use monk fruit extract, which comes from the sweetest melon in the world, and erythritol, which belongs to a class of natural sweeteners called sugar alcohols (named as such because their chemical makeup resembles both a sugar and an alcohol–more on this later).

 

Low sugar doesn’t mean sugar-free, unsweetened, or not delicious. We’ve opted for natural sweeteners because we believe in the power of great nutrition and great taste, and sweetening our products with natural sweeteners helps us make them so good you’ll forget they’re good for you.

 

 

Sugar, especially added sugars in particular, are known to have harmful effects on our health. When consumed in excess, sugar can have serious consequences like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Similarly, artificial sweeteners can also have negative effects on our health, which is why we never use artificial sweeteners in our products. By keeping sugar content to a minimum and using monk fruit and erythritol to sweeten our ice cream, we can keep the sugar content low. As a result, ENLIGHTENED Ice Cream contains between 3-6 grams of sugar per serving.

 

Monk fruit comes from Southern Asia and has been grown there for centuries. It is one of the sweetest melons of the world, making its extract a straight-from-nature replacement for traditional sweeteners. Monk fruit extract is 150-200 times sweeter than sugar yet has no calories or carbs. Nature knows what it’s doing!

 

Erythritol is a type of sugar alcohol, which is not the same thing as sugar. It’s a special kind of carbohydrate that the body is not very good at breaking down–which for us is actually pretty great! Because humans don’t have the digestive enzyme to process erythritol, it passes through the body with the taste of sugar but none of its negative effects. Therefore, it has no calories but about 70% the sweetness of sugar. There is also no effect on blood sugar levels–so it doesn’t cause blood sugar spikes–and is therefore a great alternative for diabetics and others watching their sugar intake.

 

 

At ENLIGHTENED, we’re committed to keeping our products low sugar while avoiding additives that could do our bodies harm. We believe you should make no sacrifices when snacking on low sugar goodies, so we go beyond better to provide you with snacks that hit the sweet spot of flavor & texture without settling for something that tastes just “good enough” to pass for a treat.

 

Which ice cream flavor is your favorite? Let us know and follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter for more recipes, workouts, and everything #TeamEnlightened.