Wendyl wants to know: Sugar-free sweet for fans of the natural

Avalanche Sugar Free Super Strawberry Drinking Mix - $5.99 for 200g.

I am a big fan of any food producer that attempts to replace sugar with a natural alternative.

Stevia has enjoyed huge popularity in recent years and Coca-Cola has been trialling a Coke sweetened with stevia in South America. But it recently added more stevia to its Vitamin Water and had to return to the original recipe after a consumer outcry about the taste.

Stevia can be very bitter so I was pleased to find when I tried this product there was no hint of bitterness, possibly because most of the sweetness comes from another natural sweetener, erythritol.

Ingredients

• Erythritol - This sweetener is too good to be true. Not only is it low-calorie and derived from fruits and fermented foods but studies have shown that it doesn't give the blood-sugar spike associated with normal sugar and it doesn't appear to feed bacteria in the mouth.

• Natural flavour - Nice to see a natural flavour used in the product when artificial flavour is most commonly used to get the taste of strawberry in foods.

• Colour (beetroot powder) - This is great to use the natural red of beetroot rather than opt for an artificial flavour.

• Stevia extract - Stevia is a plant which looks like mint and is 300 times sweeter than sugar.

It can have a bitter aftertaste when used in large quantities, but there was no stevia aftertaste in this product.

• Salt - This will be in here for flavour. You'll get 5.7mg of sodium per 15g serve.

My recommendations

I can't quite believe that finally someone has come up with a milk flavour which is low-calorie and sugar-free but does not contain nasty artificial sweeteners.

After analysing this I bought the chocolate one so that I can now enjoy a nightly cup of hot chocolate without having to worry about rotting my teeth and adding empty calories. Do be warned though. This powder may only be 15.6kj per 15g serve, but you will also get the calories from the added milk.

Highlights

• Uses erythritol, which doesn't harm teeth or produce blood sugar spikes and is low-calorie.

• Uses natural sweetener stevia.

• No artificial flavours, colours or preservatives.