I love chocolate, especially dark chocolate. Because my chocolate consumption is limited due to the carb factor, I often resort to eating the no sugar added (nsa) chocolate. Unfortunately, the nsa chocolate is sweetened with maltitol. Maltitol is a sugar alcohol (polyol) and it doesn’t like me, nor does it like my guts.

Maltitol-sweetened foods (usually nsa candies and chocolate) do come with a warning that they make cause a laxative effect (or gastric distress, bloating, etc.) if consumed in large quantities. For me, the quantity does not have to be large and in fact, I can suffer after eating quite a small amount of maltitol on an empty stomach.

Without going into the gory details, let’s just say it’s not pretty (definitely not something to share on a first date).

I’ve tried all the major chocolate retailers and producers including Purdy’s, Charlie’s Chocolate Factory, Roger’s, Rocky Mountain Chocolate, Hershey’s, Cadbury, Daniel, and Bernard Callebaut. Every one of them uses maltitol as their sweetener of choice. Apparently, this is due to the fact that maltitol is fairly cheap, it acts similarly to sugar (except for the browning effect), and has been used as the “diabetic” sweetener of choice for years.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who is adversely affected by maltitol and would appreciate having some choices of sweetener in my nsa chocolates and candies. I would love to see one of the major chocolate producers take the lead here and produce and market an alternatively-sweetened chocolate. I’ll be first in line to buy it.