Curious about monk sugar...

So my husband order a bag of monk fruit sweetener and it came in yesterday... the taste seems to be pretty good and it touts low glycemic reactions... but I'm curious.

The nutritional information shows zero calories (bonus!), but it shows 4g of carb... how can something have zero calories per serving, but still have 4g of carbs??

I'm not the science-y type, so I don't get it at all...

Can anyone explain to me?

I learned the hard way that monk fruit triggers my fructose malabsorption and leads to stomach acid issues (which I normally never have). So... be careful.

I wonder if the zero calories is crazy "fiber doesn't count" math?

I don't think so... here's the nutrition information.

I love monk fruit. It doesn't have the odd aftertaste of splenda or stevia for me.

However, beware of stuff like this that has erythritol in it... sugar alcohols can cause serious stomach distress for people who are sensitive to it.

I use Monk Fruit In The Raw which has maltodextrin as the bulking agent with the monk fruit extract.

Amazon link: https://smile.amazon.com/Monk-Fruit-Raw-Sweetener-Ounce/dp/B00BMAGFCO/ref=sr_1_4_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1517591090&sr=8-4&keywords=monk+fruit+in+the+raw

Oh, and the brand I get has "less than 0.5g" of carbs.

I didn't even know he was ordering it, or I would have asked on here first. I don't do a ton of sweeteners except for the odd protein pancakes... but I drink a TON of skinny girl SF syrups...

He had the 'runs' yesterday... I bet that's what got him going

I'll be very careful if I do try it out. I do OK with sugar alcohols most of the time, but sometimes they really make me gassy, and it's awful.

My classic story about sugar alcohols is back when sugar free really started being a "thing" I found sugar wafer cookies that were sugar free, and didn't look at anything else like ingredients and even if I had I wouldnt' have known what a sugar alcohol was, or what it might do to someone's system.

I was working as a Paramedic at the time, and had signed up for an overtime shift working a MLB baseball game in our town. I ate THE WHOLE PACKAGE over the course of the game. With the traffic afterwards, barely made it back to the station before the GI distress fully kicked in. Didn't make it home for almost 2 hours after that. LOL.

Live and learn.

Do you remember the chips they started making with Olestra???

Yeah... I did that with a whole bag of those babies...

Worked better than any pre colonoscopy drink out there!

LOL. I learned my lesson with the sugar-free wafers.

When Olestra came out, I read up on it.

I don't want to take ANYTHING that has a side effect of "anal leakage".

Just sayin'. LOL.

I think I tried one chip to see if it was worth the risk, and I didn't care for the texture.

A gram of carbs has 5 calories so legally if it's less than 5 you don't have to count it on the nutritional label.