Looking for an allergen-free, PG-free sweetener

E-liquids Flavors
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So far I’ve been using stuff like RF brown sugar to add a bit of sweetness to recipes. But sometimes you want a sweetener that doesn’t taste strongly of anything-in-particualr, just sweet, don’t you? And I’ve avoided pure sweeteners so far, because, not only am iallergic to PG, but quite a lot of other things; and those chemical sweeteners really make me ill, in the main , at least as food ingredients. Not that I’ve tried every one of them. It’s a case of once bitten…
Someone here was recommending Pyure Stevia, but I did a quick Google and stumbled on this blog:

I don’t know how reliable this source is (or isn’t) but it’s quite an alarming read. ( It also makes me wonder if the the purveyors of other flavour extracts are using similar methods?)

The use of chlorine is specially alarming to me, because I’ve often had mysterious reactions to processed foods, and after much thought and research, concluded that it was probably caused traces of chlorine . I’m extremely sensitive to chlorine, and it’s widely used in food processing, not only directl;y to prevent bacterial growth, but also to clean the equipment.

So…any ideas for a really safe sweetening agent?

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Have you tried erythritol?

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EM (ethyl maltol) is a popular one too, but it can mute flavors also.

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If you do some searching I believe stevia and other ladies in a powder form and you could try suspending in vg. However many report issues with getting it to dissolve.

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You could try making your own stevia extract with alcohol and actual stevia leaves.
http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2014/08/homemade-stevia-extract.html

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Bookmarked, great idear. :blush:

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I’ve been using erythritol. It’s not nearly as sweet as sucralose, but won’t gunk up coils. It’s a more natural sweetener, and only comes in VG solution. I’ve read that it won’t form a solution in PG. It is a bit weak compared to others, but I find it perfect for just a nudge of sweetness that won’t overwhelm the recipe.

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EDIT: VapeyMama I realize only the first sentence is to your statement and the rest is to the main topic, I’m bad at etiquette.

This is just a low-tech version of what I saw in the patents really. Are other extract purveyors using similar methods? This is how you’d get anything like an esther, alcohols are one of the best ways to do that.

I’d say if you, personally, have some kind of reaction to Stevia, avoid it. But it’s pretty typical, and yes, it meets the criteria for ‘natural’ – natural substances are taken out of existing organic matter, artifical are constructed from base compounds. . .even if they are chemically identical as in the case of say, vanilla extract (in fact almost all vanilla in the world is lab-made) – or the case of almond flavour, which the natural version of has cyanide in it XD. Not a lot mind, but the lab-version has none, so victory.

But of all those dozens of processes listed, yeah, most flavours use something similar.

Now, I have no idea if the thing they’re taking out of Stevia plants is any kind of dangerous, you’d need experimentation for that googles it – [basically it’s safe] (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Johan_Buyse/publication/267861645_About_the_safety_of_stevioside_used_as_a_sweetener/links/54c0ce3c0cf21674ce9fdff5.pdf). As an aside, the only reputable links sourced in your maina rticle are the patent applications themselves, which mean jack shit to most people :stuck_out_tongue: [Also this, quickie, study] (https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/shokueishi1960/26/2/26_2_169/_article/-char/ja/) There’s more as well, but I’m not buying the papers, you do it if yer worried :P.

But that’s just me parroting really, I’m nothing like an expert. But I’d say don’t worry about what the holistic hippy types are driving at if they have no evidence for it – after-all, ecogeeks have LOADS of proof for the things they’re actually right about.But ecogeeks know science.

As for whatever the actual name of the Stevia Extract was – people fear chemical names so, naturally, companies stick to the descriptive name. That chemical is indeed Stevia Extract – but it isn’t ‘Stevia’ any more than sugarcane is ‘Sugar’.

Don’t think I’ve ever spelled sugar before. . .cause I really wanna put an ‘h’ in there somewhere.

One last Edit: Remember, literally nothing is 100% safe, I set my bar at something like “Is it more damaging than moderate drinking?” Because moderate drinking, properly defined, might actually help some things in your health, and correlates to some other health issues, and it’s basically a wash. Most things one chooses to do should be close to a wash when it comes to actual life expectancy (as opposed to specific health risk). Even driving, I’d starve if I didn’t do it, so it’s worth the fairly high risk of eventually dying in a car crash and near certainty of being in one.

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@Ailith , I’m not worried about the Strevia itself. Thought it was worth a try. It;s the chemical used in extracting the Stevia…if that blogger was correct. Like I said, I’m extremely sensitive to chlorine, for a start, so it’s no good me vaping something that’s been bleached with chorine. It’s not that I’m a holistic, hippy type , nor a heath nut. In fact, never worried at all about food ingredients and such, in the past. But now I have to be very careful , if I don’t want my life to have such nasty symptoms all the time that I wish I were dead. No, I’m not overstating it. And I wish people would read posts before responding to them. I would risk the Stevia itself, but I won’t risk something that I already know will make me ill (i.e, traces of chlorine from processing)

That said, many thanks to everybody else for the helpful suggestions :slight_smile:

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Go to the patent papers – ctrl+f for chlorine. It’s not there. They don’t use it. None of those companies use it.

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Well, to conclusively rule it out you would also have to search all those patent papers for all of the chrorine based bleaching agents, such as sodium hypochlorite, Not even I am motivated enough to attenpt that (nor confident of finding out all the possible chrorine componds) so I’m pretty sure you haven’t done that. But no need, I did look through some of those patents, and a few scientific papers on the topic, and quickly formed the conclusion that the chances of the end product not containing any acompounds that are toxic to my system are miniscule. Not least because I’m allergic to a lot of the bulking agents that they commonly add!

I was also intigued to learn that stevia, itself, has an effect on the metabolism, such that it would serve aggravate a serious condition that I suffer from! ( I tend to suffer from hypoglycemia, because i can’t burtrn my body fat efficiently) So it’s lucky that I stumbled on that info!