I recently ran across a sweetener advertising itself as natural and, if not outright “healthy,” at least it was neutral in terms of its affect on your overall health. So this is something I have to look into. It’s called Kakato and spoiler alert: I’m pleasantly surprised.

Obviously, we’ve discussed at length how sugar is a scourge on public health, and artificial sweeteners might actually be worse. So the search for something sweet to use in recipes, in coffee and tea, and anything else is ongoing.

Stevia has been the Ernst family staple in terms of sweeteners and it’s what I recommend to patients looking to satisfy their sweet tooth. But it does have a unique flavor some people don’t like, and it can be difficult to use in recipes without doing some serious tinkering as the sweetness is much more intense than sugar, and people often end up using too much.

Kakato health and ingredients profile

Kakato is a product, consisting of a blend of ingredients. Those ingredients are: Natural Isomalto-Oligosaccharides, Tagatose, Stevia Extract, Monk Fruit Extract.

Stevia and monk fruit are good individual sweeteners. They are natural, healthy do a great job actually adding sweetness to your food and drinks. It’s the “isomalto-oligosaccharides” and “tagatose” that have those sort of suspicious, overly long names. So I did some digging.

Isomalto-Oligosaccharides are naturally occurring carbohydrate sweetener that you’ll find in honey. The part of the second word, “saccharide” indicates that this is a sugar, just like sucrose or fructose or maltose, etc. But here’s the interesting part. As the glucose molecules are bound together in groups of either three or six, your body does not digest it. It can only digest sugars that consist of individual molecules. So your tongue senses sweetness, you swallow it, and your body simply passes it with the waste. So that’s definitely a safe sweetening agent.

Tagatose is also quite interesting. It is found in dairy products, cocoa and some fruit. It is technically a sugar, but the body metabolizes it differently than other sugars. In fact, it has been shown to actually REDUCE blood sugar levels. It does this by triggering the production of a compound called glucokinase. This tells the liver to store sugar as glycogen rather than let it roam the bloodstream hoping to be burned as energy.

Now, storing glycogen is fine as long as you intermittent fast. The sugar stored in your liver will never be used if you are continually eating because there will always be a source of energy available. It takes the liver around 16-18 hours to clear out glycogen stores, so intermittent fasting does the trick.

So, tagatose is Ernst-approved, but qualified with the need for regular intermittent fasting.

Add to that the fact that there are SOME health benefits to Kakato as well. As the sweetener contains 2g of fiber per serving, it is considered a “prebiotic” because it helps to feed the gut microbiome without being digested by the person eating it.

Flavor and texture

Kakato is a bit sweeter than sugar, so it will take some getting used to in terms of recipes. There is a slight aftertaste, which probably comes from the use of stevia. However, it’s not outrageously more sweet than sugar and the other ingredients seem to temper the Stevia. It’s texture is a bit more powdery than sugar.

In terms of baking, it works great. You can substitute it in for about 20% less than the recipe calls for in sugar.

I’m pleased and impressed and I’ll be using it moving forward!