Xref: utzoo rec.food.cooking:22646 sci.chem:2610 sci.bio:3987
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!throop
From: throop@cs.utexas.edu (David Throop)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking,sci.chem,sci.bio
Subject: Left Handed Sugar
Message-ID: <1064@ai.cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 90 21:36:53 GMT
Followup-To: rec.food.cooking
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 22


  What ever happened to left-handed sugar?

  About 3 years ago, somebody reported that an optical isomer of sucrose
was actually sweet.  The articles I saw said that earlier literature had
reported that this isomer was foul tasting, but this had been caused by
a contaminant.  Anyway, the discovery was that this form actually tasted
great.

  But, (and here was the exciting part!) the body couldn't digest this
form of sucrose.  This promised a *great* sweetener - tastes just like
sucrose, you can bake with it, cook with it, just like sucrose, but
never get fat!  And there was a bunch of hoopla....

  And now what? No reports!  No rumors!  No ice cream!  No left handed
chocolate chip cookies!  No sinister macadamia brandy fudge truffles!

  And I keep getting fatter....

  Others may ask "Where's the beef?"  But I ask "Where's the sugar?"

David Throop