[Porthardygurl]

THEN TRY MALITOL! This wonderful sweetner used in a variety of sugar free chocolates makes everything sweeter without the yucky after taste..and then later you can lose half a pound of body weight...(enter cheesy smile by sketchy salesman)

No, actually im serious.. I never bother to read fine print on packaging..so when the package on my sugar free chocolate said "May produce laxative effect if consumed on frequent basis"... I didnt believe it..So here i am with my hunny..eating these little caramal coated chocolate drops (Sugar free of course) and knowing i can have about 7 of them since there low carb and low calorie, im not thinking about anything as im eating away in front of the TV..

Well! 7 candies later and several hours later i found myself stuck on the royal throne and wondering what on earth i did wrong..only to look on the package the next day and read the fine print.. Turns out Malitol if consumed in large quantities(though not expressing on the package what large quantities is) that it will produce an un-wanted laxative effect..

So just to let you know.. in case you are dying for sweets and look to sugar free candy..read the package...and think twice before sticking it in your mouth inless you want to spend half a night reading a book on the toilet.

[nationalparker]

Yep - years ago we used to joke with one of our friends who was often constipated to eat two sugar-free candies - the sorbitol in them would have her "going" pretty darned quickly!

[bargoo]

I wouldn't touch malitol with a 10 foot pole sorbitol is almost as bad.

[claire0412]

I had the same problem! I thought large quantities meant the whole bag, so I stuck to 5 sweets and two hours later all **** broke loose. My boyfriend thought it was hilarious and said it serves me right for dieting

[kaplods]

Any of the sugar alcohols, also called fruit alcohols (any sweetener ending in -ol) can have this affect. So can actual fruit for that matter (though it usually requires an awful lot of fruit, and the effect isn't just due to the fruit alcohol, but also the water and fiber).

I find that I don't have issues if I stick to one serving (per the nutrition label, not per "looks like an appropriate serving to me), but I still usually avoid the products just because the servings are so ridiculously small. I bought a pack of sugar free jelly belly jelly beans in the cafeteria gift shop when I was working, and the package wasn't even a full 2" square (and it wasn't filled to capacity either. Maybe 15 to 20 jelly beans tops). I even read the nutrition label, but I misread it. I thought the information was for the whole bag (it was such a tiny bag, it didn't really compute to me that there could be more than 2 servings in the bag).

When I started having uh, potty issues I immediately suspected the sugar alcohols in the jelly bellies and dug the bag out of my trash. Sure enough, the packaged supposedly contained something like 5 servings of like 3 or 4 jelly beans. Now who eats 4 jelly beans?

If I were a person who found 4 jelly beans satisfying, I wouldn't need them to be sugar free (I mean even as a diabetic, 4 small sugar jelly beans aren't going to have a huge impact on my blood sugar, and even the calorie difference is minimal).

[Chantelle]

LOL YUP... my DH had a rude rude shock when he thought a box of Atkins snack bars I had sitting around some time ago were regular candybars... polished off 5 or 6 of them in a couple of hours. I don't think I saw him for the rest of the day, he was locked in the bathroom shrieking

[MonicaM]

Been there, done that......only with HORRIBLE gas pains. TMI - the dogs sniffed and walked out of the family room!

[Ruthxxx]

One of the underlying principles of this plan is to eat REAL food. Most of us avoid the "OL Family". If you are diabetic they sometimes act the same as the "OS Family" and set up cravings along with the other interesting side effects.

[weezle]

Monica - BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA. I so feel you.

[Porthardygurl]

Interesting to note Ruth..thanks for the heads up. To be honest..this sugar free chocolate stuff..doesnt taste as good as i thought it would..people sure know how to market stuff as "delicious"