This is a great point. If the glycemic index has drastically increased, then this could actually be worse for your blood sugar levels than the original quantity of 'actual' sugar.
Unless you have diabetes markers, glycemic index is almost entirely irrelevant, it's like people that avoid gluten/lactose who aren't intolerant. Studies that made links to glycemic load to overall health have largely since been found invalid.
Thank you for that link. That study period of 5 weeks is not nearly enough to evaluate high versus low glycemic index diets upon metabolic syndrome. All the study showed was no acute impacts (good to know, but not conclusive enough for prescriptive direction). After finding that out from the study linked to, I tried to find a study that tracked glycemic index in meals of participants over 1-5 years, but couldn't come up with any, so if you know of any to link to, I would really appreciate it.
It's still valuable to know. I am a diabetic, and so are a lot of other people. I would choose lower-sugar chocolate if it were available (I don't eat anything but plain dark chocolate now but I do miss Kit-Kats), but if it were actually worse for my glycemic control than the regular Kit-Kat bar, I'm not doing myself any favors.
The only way would be to test as glycemic index (but especially glycemic response) varies wildly based on what is packed along with the ride (in some ironic cases fats and proteins raise glycemic response and in others lowers it).
Also in practice individuals glycemic response is more complicated than most might think and often times the index number has little correlation (you have to remember the index number is done for a fasted individual... most people eat multiple things during a meal).
Finally dissolving fast does not mean it necessarily will absorb or produce a great response. After all sugar alcohols and glycerin readily dissolve quickly in water but have little impact on insulin (albeit perhaps on sensitivity but that is another complicated story).
My bigger concern isn't the insulin but the fact that sugar actually has an affect on the brain similar to drugs. New sugars could have a greater addictive impact.
Touche. Yes I perhaps should have said sugar alcohols such as glycerine. I'm not sure why I said "and" probably because I think of glycerine is not as sweet I was thinking of maltitol. For example calling glycerine a sugar alcohol is sort of akin to calling cholesterol a steroid or certain vegetables a fruits. It might actually be the pedantic case but I just don't think of glycerine like that.
Always remember that technically correct is the best kind of correct. And repeat it frequently, so that others don't forget. And to imply that you are very frequently technically correct. And to backhandedly excuse yourself for injecting barely-relevant-but-indisputably-true facts into other people's conversations.~
You can also call it glycerol, if that helps. It helps me to not hear the alt-rock song by Bush every time I'm thinking of the chemical.
Glycerol may not taste as sweet as maltitol or sorbitol, but it won't make your bowels explode as violently, either. And it makes your low-sugar baking feel less dry.
> The new faster dissolving sugar will enable Nestlé to significantly reduce the total sugar in its confectionery products, while maintaining great taste.
I suspect GI not much. Sugar is dissolving fast - in any case - that by the time it hits the gut it is ready to be absorbed (once it has been split into glucose-fructose).
I wonder if the glucose-fructose split is happening already earlier in the mouth possibly the sweets could taste sweeter (fructose tastes sweeter than sugar). That would be equivalent to turning sugar into HFCS with 50% fructose in the mouth - may taste slightly sweeter.
In the end what could matter if this is an indication that Nestle has set course on lowering sugar content in food. Iff
As far as I'm concerned most large-scale commercial chocolates like KitKat could do with 40% less sugar, period. Making it just as sweet with less sugar still makes it just as sweet.
