Erythritol

Erythritol is the polyol that breaks the rule. Sorbitol, mannitol, maltitol and xylitol are all high here because they are poorly absorbed and ferment; erythritol is about ninety percent absorbed in the small intestine and leaves in the urine. Very little reaches the bacteria, which is why it is the sugar alcohol most people tolerate.

Erythritol is a polyol, but the exception among them: roughly 90% is absorbed in the small intestine and leaves in the urine, so very little reaches the bacteria that ferment the others. That tolerance was measured rather than assumed. In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 64 adults, 20 g and 35 g of erythritol in water produced NO significant symptoms at all, and 50 g raised only nausea and borborygmi - where the same 50 g of xylitol raised six different complaints. At every dose tested, erythritol gave significantly fewer watery stools than xylitol. The doses are single boluses in water, which flatters nothing: it is the hardest form to tolerate.

Erythritol contains no fructose — it is a polyol, and no polyol carries fructose. Its own issue is different: about 90% is absorbed in the small intestine, which is why it troubles fewer people than the other sugar alcohols.

Erythritol carries no nickel where the other polyols do, and the difference is in how it is made. The polyols are made by catalytic hydrogenation over nickel, and the regulation governing them sets a nickel limit for each. Erythritol is made by FERMENTATION with osmophilic yeasts, its entry in that same regulation carries no nickel criterion at all, and there is no catalyst to leave a trace.