Recipe & Product Review: Fruit Vinegar-Flavored Water, the Closest Drink I’ve Found to Fruit Juice

**Left to right:** Apple cider vinegar, date vinegar, and raspberry vinegar.

Before I got diabetes, I used to love fruit juice. It’s one of the things I miss most and there really are no good zero-carb substitutes. I’ve found a few kombuchas that I like, but all have at least a few carbs per cup. Not too bad, but not really worth taking medication for.

Recently, though, I found that I could add apple cider vinegar to water to get a really great sour apple juice flavor. I tried searching for other fruit vinegars, but everything I found had significant amounts of sugar, until u/ChezLuc, on Reddit, pointed me to Supreme Vinegar. They have a huge range of different kinds of vinegars, including 12 fruit vinegars. I e-mailed the company and all have “almost no residual sugar,” except for pineapple (1 g/15 mL). I tested my blood sugar after drinking ~50 mL of the raspberry and didn’t see any rise, so I’m pretty sure they’re telling the truth.

Here’s my thoughts on the raspberry and date flavors (rest were out of stock) and a couple recipe ideas:

Raspberry: I really like this flavor. Basically tastes like berries with the sugar removed, though more like blackberry than raspberry. The flavor is very strong (about twice as strong as apple cider vinegar for the same ratio). Surprisingly, it wasn’t very acidic compared with the apple cider vinegar I get from Costco, even though both claim to be diluted to 5% acidity. Maybe there’s something else in the apple that makes it more sour?
Date: This tasted exactly like dates with the sugar removed and was also not very acidic. Personally, I don’t love dates, so this wasn’t my favorite. If you do like dates, though, this would probably be pretty good.
Recipes:
- Basic:
  - 20:1 volume ratio of water to vinegar
  - Mix and serve
- Sweetened:
  - 20:1 volume ratio of water to vinegar
  - Sweetener to taste. I use 2 drops liquid sucralose or 10g allulose

Overall, I’m really enjoying these and have been drinking a ton of the raspberry vinegar-water over the last week. I’m definitely going to order the rest of Supreme’s flavors once they’re back in stock. I’m especially looking forward to the peach.

– QD

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Recipe: Salted Caramel Toasted nuts

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I’ve been confined to my house for the past couple weeks due to the Bay Area’s “shelter-in-place” order, so I’ve been experimenting with different recipes.

I always liked caramel flavored deserts, so I decided to see if I could get the same effect with allulose.

The experiment was successful The allulose browned & caramelized just like sugar. By adding butter and salt, I got a pretty good approximation of salted caramel. I tried it mixed in with toasted walnuts and pecans. The sweet/savory and soft/crunch contrast was fantastic. I personally preferred the walnuts, but you could put it over whatever you’d like.

I also tried just pouring the caramel into molds and topping with flaky sea salt. Quite good, but I prefer it over the nuts.

Over medium heat, allulose melted, then caramelized, just like sugar.

Plain salted caramel with flaky sea salt

I’ve included the recipe below if you want to try them yourself.

Hope you enjoy it!

– QD

Toasted Nuts with Low-Carb Salted Caramel

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Prep Time 1

Cook Time 10

Total Time 11

Servings 50g portions

Calories 413 kcal

Ingredients

300 g nuts
100 g allulose
45 g butter
60 g heavy cream
½ tbsp kosher salt

Instructions

Toast nuts in a skillet over medium heat until fragrant. Set aside.
Add allulose and stir with a wooden spoon or heat resistant spatula. The allulose will clump up, melt, foam, and then brown to form a thick, amber liquid.
Add the butter, stirring continuously until it’s completely melted. Then slowly drizzle in heavy cream. Note: the mixture will bubble vigorously.
Stir in salt, then add the nuts and mix until combined.
Transfer to a bowl to cool and serve!

Notes

3.8g net carbs/serving

Nutrition information calculated by adding up macros of the individual ingredients and using walnuts for the nuts. Allulose not included in total or net carbs.

Nutrition

Serving: 50gCalories: 413kcalCarbohydrates: 7.3gProtein: 7.8gFat: 42gFiber: 3.5g

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was in the comments

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Maple Syrup Taste Test: 4 Home-Made vs. 4 Store-Bought, all Low-Carb

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Following up on my French Toast post, I wanted to try find a good zero-carb maple syrup to go along with it. On Reddit, u/botrock22 recommended All-u-Lose; I also found several other brands on Amazon that looked pretty good. I also did a search for low-carb or keto maple syrup recipes and found a couple that looked promising.

To figure out which I liked best, I decided to do a taste test.

Contenders:

Store-Bought:
- Pyure Maple Syrup Alternative (??? net carb, ??? cal/tbsp.)
- Sweet-Like-Syrup, Maple (1 net carb, 25 cal/tbsp.) ***ISOMALTOSE
- Lakanto Maple-Flavored Syrup (0.5 net carb, 13 cal/tbsp.) ***
- All-u-Lose Maple Syrup (1.8 net carb, 13 cal/tbsp.)
Home-Made:
- Ruled.Me Thick & Sticky Maple Syrup (0.1 net carb, 14 cal/tbsp.)
- My versions, adapted from Mel’s Kitchen with the following modifications:
  - All: allulose + 5g molasses substituted for white & brown sugars, maple extract increased 4x
  - Version 1: 120 g water (33 wt%)
  - Version 2: 80 g water (24 wt%)
  - Version 3: 50 g water (17 wt%)

I assessed each syrup on the following factors:

Calories
Net carbs
Ingredients
Cost
Taste
Texture

Here’s the results:

Note: After I bought it, I noticed the Sweet-Like-Syrup brand uses isomaltose as the sweetener. Isomaltose is not low carb (GI = 35), so I didn’t try it.

For me, homemade version #2 (24 wt% water) was the clear winner, probably because it was adjusted to my taste preference. It had a strong maple flavor, was thick enough to cling to the french toast while still spreading easily, and didn’t have any unpleasant aftertaste. It was also extremely easy to make and cheaper to boot. I’m going to start keeping a batch around for French toast, pancakes, and other deserts.

I’ve included the recipe below if you want to make it yourself.

Hope you enjoy it!

– QD