to ask what is the best sweetener?

[crochetmonkey74]

Hello hive mind

I need a recommendation for sweetener for coffee. I drink tea with milk no sugar, but cannot do coffee with sugar. I'm on a weight loss plan with a nutritionist who has suggested sweetener- just for this one drink (I like coffee)
What's the sweetener you guys think is the best without that bitter aftertaste?
I don't need advice about how I would be better off having sugar/ go without etc etc as this is part of a bigger picture that I won't put all on here
Also, if it is easily bought in supermarkets, that would be great but I can also buy from Amazon etc
Thanks for any help

Sucralose ? This is the best I could find and if you don’t add too much there is no after taste. I prefer alcohol sugars to stevia - can’t stand the aftertaste of that.

instead of sugar have you tried adding a drip of vanilla essence to your coffee ?

I like erythritol.

instead of sugar have you tried adding a drip of vanilla essence to your coffee ?
I have never thought of that! I could try this definitely

Hermesetas

It's very personal. Most widely-available sweeteners are either polyols (also known as sugar alcohols) like erythritol, xylitol, or other things ending in -ol, which are either low-calorie or slow release because the body doesn't digest them very well, or they're low-volume sweeteners, which are low-calorie because they're extremely sweet so you only need a tiny amount, like saccharine, aspartame, acesulfame k, sucralose and stevia. Polyols tend to have a slight cooling effect in the mouth, and can cause gastrointestinal side effects if you have too much (except erythritol, for most people), while the low-volume sweeteners tend to have a bitter aftertaste because of how they work on your tongue. Different people prefer different low-volume sweeteners, though on average sucralose tends to go down better than something like saccharine. Some people really dislike the cooling sensation from polyols. Sometimes a blend of a polyol and a low-volume sweetener can avoid too much of either set of disadvantages. If you're new to the whole area and looking for a brand that's easy to buy that's likely to be the closest thing to sugar, I'd recommend Candarel Sugarly, which is a blend of erythritol with aspartame and acesulfame k, Natvia/Truvia/other brands of erythritol/stevia blend, or one of the other granulated blends. Be aware some of them are blended very sweet, so that you only need maybe half a teaspoon to be the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar.

Personally I just use a sucralose sweetener tablet, but if you're coming straight from sugar the granulated polyol/low volume sweetener blends will be a better mimic for the texture and taste of sweetening with sugar.

@JarByTheDoor thats a brilliant explanation - I’ll keep it in mind- Thankyou !

Personally my favourite is an erythritol/sucralose blend, but that doesn't seem to be widely commercially available — you can buy it online, though. That's because I don't get on with stevia — for me, stevia's sweetness takes a few moments to kick in, especially in hot drinks, which is kind of useless. My DP finds stevia unbearably bitter, whereas I don't. Aspartame/acesulfame k is okay for the low volume sweetener part, but I find sucralose more sugar-like.

I know in other countries you can also get allulose, which is a type of sugar that's indigestible (so it can have the same side effects as polyols), and the benefit of that is that it acts similarly to ordinary sugar in cooking, so it will, for example, caramelise, whereas polyols and low volume sweeteners won't (never try to toast a sugar free marshmallow — you just get a dispiriting lump of charcoal). But allulose doesn't seem to be easily available here yet, and as well as the digestion issues it also has some of the cooling sensation polyols have.

The digestive issues shouldn't be a major problem with the amounts you're intending to use anyway, TBH.

Americans talk a lot about monkfruit-based sweeteners but I know next to nothing about that and have never tried it, and it's not easy to get here.

Glad it's helpful burgled!

Trust me on this one op, it sounds so weird but it works. Add a tiny pinch of salt to your coffee, a really tiny amount. It’s enough to take the bitterness off if the coffee is too bitter.

Saccharine and sucralose mess with gut bacteria and can cause haywire with blood sugar levels as a result.

I would say wean yourself off the sweet taste.