Sugars and sweeteners can either spike your blood sugar (they have high glycemic indexes) or they don’t have an impact on your blood sugar. If you want the latter, you’re in the right place!
Some of the sugars and sweeteners with the lowest glycemic indexes include:
- Artificial sweeteners
- Sugar alcohols
- Natural sugar substitutes like stevia and monk fruit sweetener
What is the glycemic index, and which sweeteners have the lowest glycemic index? We’ll review 17 of them!
Glycemic index in sweeteners
Regular sugars and sweeteners made with real sugar (not artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols) can raise your blood sugar significantly because they are high in carbs and sugar. When something raises your blood sugar quickly, it’s said to have a high glycemic index.
The glycemic index (GI) measures how much a single food affects your blood sugar levels. The scale for the glycemic index goes from 0-100, with pure glucose (the same type of sugar in your bloodstream) having a score of 100.
Sweeteners are classified as low, medium, or high on the glycemic index scale. Here is how the glycemic index scale works:
Low GI: 0-55
Medium GI: 56-69
High GI: 70-100+
Low glycemic index sweeteners
Many of the lowest glycemic index sweeteners are considered artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, or natural no-calorie sugar substitutes. That means that they contain no (or a negligible amount of) carbs or sugar, so they don’t impact your blood sugar.
These low glycemic index sweeteners can be ideal if you’re on a low-carb diet like keto or have blood sugar imbalances such as prediabetes or diabetes.
(The glycemic index is next to the name!)
- Acesulfame potassium – 0
This artificial sweetener doesn’t contain any carbs, which means it has a glycemic index of 0.
Also called Ace-K, acesulfame potassium is one of the two sweeteners in Equal.
- Advantame – 0
Advantame isn’t as popular as an artificial sweetener, but it also has a glycemic index of 0. (Artificial sweeteners aren’t allowed on a Paleo diet, but can be suitable for keto!)
- Allulose – 0
Allulose has a structure similar to a sugar alcohol but isn’t technically a sugar alcohol. It’s present naturally in foods like figs, raisins, wheat, maple syrup, and molasses, but is isolated and processed to make the pure sweetener.
- Arabitol – likely 0 (GI not available)
There isn’t a lot of information on this sugar alcohol (it’s not one of the more popular ones), but it’s used as an anticariogenic (prevents cavities/tooth decay) agent.
- Aspartame – 0
Aspartame is one of the more popular artificial sweeteners used in foods. It has a brand name of Nutrasweet and is combined with Ace-K (#1 on this list) to make the sweetener Equal.
- Erythritol – 0
This sugar alcohol is one of the more popular ones and is a keto (very low-carb diet) favorite.
- Lactitol – likely 0 (GI not available)
Lactitol isn’t as popular as other sugar alcohols, so you probably won’t see it on the ingredients list as often as those like xylitol and erythritol.
All sugar alcohols can cause digestive upset if you eat them in large enough quantities since they are poorly absorbed and not digested like regular sugars.
- Mannitol – 2
Fun fact – mannitol is used to coat chewing gum sticks so it doesn’t stick to the wrapper!
- Monk fruit sweetener – 0
Monk fruit sweetener is one of the few sweeteners that doesn’t raise your blood sugar but isn’t considered artificial. It’s made from the Luo Han Guo plant (Siraitia grosvenorii), a vine in the gourd family native to China. It’s 100-250 times sweeter than regular sugar, so it’s not as sweet as the high-intensity sweeteners.
- Neotame – 0
Like other high-intensity sweeteners, neotame is much sweeter than regular sugar – around 8,000 times sweeter!
- Saccharin – 0
Saccharin was the first artificial sweetener to be discovered back in the late 1800’s!
- Sorbitol – 4
Sorbitol is around 60% as sweet as regular sugar with around ⅓ of the calories.
- Steviol glycosides (stevia) – 0
Like monk fruit sweetener, stevia is a natural sugar substitute that provides negligible calories and is suitable for very low-carb diets.
- Sucralose – 0
Sucralose (Splenda) is one of the most popular artificial sweeteners on the market and is around 600 times sweeter than regular sugar.
- Tagatose – 3
This sugar exists naturally in some fruits like apples, bananas, and pineapple. Tagatose isn’t a sugar alcohol but has a similar structure to sugar alcohols. It’s about as sweet as regular sugar but with fewer calories.
- Xylitol – 12
One of the more popular sugar alcohols, xylitol is present in most types of sugar-free gum.
- Yacon syrup – 1
Yacon syrup is made by reducing the juice of the yacon plant which is native to South America. It’s rich in fiber, which is known as a prebiotic (helps feed probiotics, which are beneficial bacteria in your gut).
FAQs:
Artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, and natural no-calorie sweeteners like monk fruit sweetener and stevia have the lowest glycemic indexes.
Stevia and monk fruit sweetener are considered some of the safer sugar-free sweeteners for people with diabetes. They aren’t sugar alcohols, nor are they artificial sweeteners, yet don’t raise blood sugar levels.
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