I read about the tagalose and want to see what it’s like if you bake with it.

It also crystallizes under heat, which means it will caramelize and can be used for candy, like fudge.

*Some people on some bulletin boards did their own tests with blood glucometers and registered a reaction (they are prone to -ol reactions anyway), so mileage varies.

How can you caramelize Erythritol or tagatose to make gooey caramel filling, like in a candy bar? Like, is it just – add to milk and then boil it? Or do you heat the powder, and then add milk?

* Yes, it carmelizes just fine, about exactly the way table sugar does. I made syrup out of it that was delicious. I made Bran muffins, with a buter/flour/tagatose struesel topping that browned, crisped, and tasted absolutely indistinguishable from a table sugar muffin.

* Since technically it IS a sugar, it measures and crystalizes pretty much exactly like sucrose (table sugar) or fructose. (Chemically, it is almost identical to l-fructose, just one hexane being reversed.) I have used it in ANY recipe, gram-for-gram, exactly like table sugar, and the results were consistent – no perceptable difference.

* After eating some and waiting a while, it left me extremely sated.

* Not only does tagatose itself have an EXTREMELY low glycemic index (3), it also acts as a “control rod” for the absorption of other starches and sugars, much like fiber. In fact, since it behaves so much like fiber in the intestines, Spherix wanted to be able to label it fiber. The FDA nixeed this though. Too bad. In light of modern thinking about diet and the bad effects of glucose spikes and resulting high insulin levels, this fiber-like behavior is tagatose’s main exciting atribute to my mind.

The not-so-good news:

* Anti-social brown properties: Like other non-digestable carbs, e.g. polyols and fiber, Tagatose gave me some pretty potent gas. And not just gas, at first, gobbling down irresponsible amounts of the aforementioned syrup pretty much liquified my whole digestive system, much like overindulgence in Sorbitol does. To be fair though, moderating intake improved that problem. Also, after a month or so, my guts got used to tagatose and I seem to have grown completely immune to the laxative effect. It still gives me gas though.

Use with other sweeteners: Spherix and Arla especially tout tagatose to use in combination with Splenda, sacharine or equal. I have found this to be a golden solution to the gas/diarreah problem. Tagatose splendidly masks the flavor of sacharine, yet retains its sweetness. For example, a teaspoon of tagatose in a 16 oz Diet Coke, miraculously transforms it into something that is astoundingly like regular Coke. Diet root beer works even better. And bran muffins too. For the sugar ingredient of the main muffin, I use 2/3 Brown Sugar Twin and 1/3 tagatose. For the streusel I use straight tagatose. These bran muffins are a miracle food. The tagatose 1) COMPLETLY masks the flavor of the sacharine, and 2) acts as a glucose control rod for the starch in the muffin. These are a sweet, bready treat with what must be a negligible glycemic load.

I think tagatose is a miracle food. I can’t wait till it is more prevalent as an ingredient of “smart-carb” foods. I follow the Zone diet and find it to be an exremely effective tool

Scott

Can you tell me how you ordered the tagatose from Arla?
Also, how much did it cost?