Nectresse Natural No Calorie Sweetener

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Living in a cold weather climate for at least 1/3 of the year means that some of us rely on hot beverages to keep our core temperature up during the day 😉 I admit to preferring hot coffee over other choices, but even I can only drink so much of it and often switch to herbal and decaffeinated teas during the afternoon and evening hours. While I generally drink my coffee straight up (unless I’m playing barista), I need my tea sweetened or it won’t be going down.

I recently received samples of NECTRESSE, the new natural no calorie sweetener from the makers of Splenda. It’s a sweetener made from the extract of monk fruit. Haven’t heard of monk fruit before, that’s okay neither had I, so I did some research on it and learned that the monk fruit extract is nearly 300 times sweeter than sugar (!) and had been used as a natural low-calorie sweetener in China for nearly a millennium to treat diabetes and obesity.¹

Keeping in mind that I never use real sugar to sweeten my beverages (as a personal choice I don’t like to ‘drink’ my calories), I switched out my Sugar Twin and Sweet & Low for Nectresse in my tea for a week. Here’s what I noticed…Nectresse is more granulated than the other sweeteners I use, and also has a light beige color (it’s not white), but the Nectresse dissolved quite easily into my beverages when stirred.

The packaging states that one packet of Nectresse contains the same sweetness as two teaspoons of sugar. I thought I’d start out with one packet, although I do usually use two packets of other brands when I’m sweetening my tea. One packet seemed like not quite enough for my cup of tea, but two of them were way to sweet, so…I stuck with one the rest of the time, and really actually got used to it. There does seem to be a bit of an after taste as most sweeteners tend to have, but I honestly can’t place what it is. It isn’t chemical tasting or sour though.

Of course Nectresse isn’t limited to using to sweeten hot beverages; smoothies, yogurt, tart berries, sauces and dressings can all be sweetened using it.

You can even bake with it! My daughter loves pound cake, but it has so much sugar in it – so I baked up an orange flavored pound cake the other day using the Nectresse in place of the sugar called for in the recipe. There were no complaints about the taste of the pound cake, so I’m guessing the Nectresse worked like it was suppose to!

I’m not here to have a debate on whether or not any kind of no calorie processed sweetener should be used, and I’m not a doctor or a dietician – I’m just sharing a product alternative for those of us that choose to use them as a personal choice.

¹Ling Yeouruenn, A New Compendium of Materia Medica, 1995 Science Press, Beijing.

I received media samples of NECTRESSE Sweetener. All opinions are my own. Published by Tammy Litke.

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