Monk Fruit Sweetener
 

A fruit of the herbaceous perennial vine Siraitia grosvenorii, native to southern China and northern Thailand, is called by several names, including luo han guo, Buddha fruit or, more recently, monk fruit.

Has anyone tried this? I saw this on Dr. Oz show.

They have a liquid form at Walmart, it is called "Monk Fruit To Go".

I have a bunch of the liquid Stevia, just can't get past the bitterness of it.

Please chime in everyone.

Yeah. I've used one brand I liked and another I don't like so much. The one I liked was Trimedica Slimsweet and the one I don't like is PureLo Han from Swansonvitamins.com.

The only issue with the Slimsweet was it tends to clump and get hard. The last time I had it I ended up adding water to it and it made a honey like stuff that was actually really good.

Thanks Nancy.

I am going to do some checking this weekend at my local health food store and see what I can find.

Is it bitter tasting like Stevia?

I've used and liked Slim Sweet too. Yes, it clumps and it's fairly pricey. Depends on what you use it for. I've heard it doesn't have a long shelf life, that it loses its sweetness. I've got some old stuff and now that I'm reminded, I'm going to haul it out and see. I never thought of combining it with water and making a liquid sweetener. (Duh.)

I currently use Lo Han drops from Nunaturals, mostly in addition to other sweeteners because it's not very sweet. 10 drops is equal to a tsp, if I remember correctly.

Btw, I think brand makes a big difference in stevia. I use Nunaturals exclusively because I don't detect bitterness in it like I have other brands.

Other than that, I really like Swerve sweetener.

I never heard of Swerve...but another thread here talks about using Nectresse...which contains monk fruit, but has "sugary" additives. I'd try Swerve if I could find it here...perhaps it's something in some parts of the country, but not mine?

I have recently seen Monk fruit to Go at my local Walmart. Has anyone used it and what did you think? Also, can I cook with monk fruit sweetener or is it like aspartame and degrades with heat?

I have not used many non-calorie sweeteners as the taste generally does not appeal to me but wondered if this was worth a try.

I order it online from their website, or Netrition.



I've not tried that particular brand, but in my experience, monk fruit does well in baking. Most people say to use sweeteners synergistically, so I rarely use lo han by itself, but usually with Swerve and/or stevia. Lo han is mild. Nunaturals says their drops are 10 drops for a tsp of sugar equivalency, for instance, versus usually 3 for stevia.

JL, thanks for the information. I hadn't heard that about using sweeteners in concert rather than individually. I may give that a try. It may help me with liking them.

I have tried the monk fruit to go at wal-mart and I didn't care for it, to me it was bitter just like everything else seems to be.

Have you tried Swerve? I've never seen anyone complain about bitterness with that product, just the price.

Monk fruit sugar is amazing!
 

Over the years of restrictive dieting, I have discover I am very picky when it comes to artificial sweeteners. I have tried everything under the sun (and then some) to cut out my added sugar intake. Until now! I just bought Monk fruit sugar at my local health food store, and it is AMAZING. It does not have a bitter, weird after taste, nor would you realize you were not having cane sugar in your coffee if not for the fact that Monk sugar is very "light" in flavor. I am SO HAPPY! It is carb, calorie, and sugar free. I strongly recommend this to anyone trying to find an alternative. As for me, I guess my next quest will be to find it sold by the 5lb bag! :)

I've been using Swerve for baking -- my new favorite low carb recipe site has a lot of baked goods that use it as the sweetener. I don't mind it so much. It works well in recipes.