No sugar is truly “good” for diabetes, but several sweeteners have minimal or zero impact on blood glucose, making them far better choices than table sugar. The best options fall into three categories: zero-calorie natural sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit, sugar alcohols like erythritol, and a newer rare sugar called allulose. Each behaves differently in your body, tastes slightly different, and comes with its own trade-offs worth understanding before you stock your pantry.
Zero-Calorie Sweeteners: Stevia and Monk Fruit
Stevia and monk fruit are plant-derived sweeteners that contain no carbohydrates and do not raise blood sugar at all. They pass through your digestive system without being broken down into glucose, so they have no measurable effect on insulin. For day-to-day use in coffee, tea, smoothies, and baking, these two are the simplest swap.
Stevia comes from the leaves of a South American plant and is 200 to 300 times sweeter than sugar. Because of that intensity, a little goes a long way. When you buy stevia in jar form, you need only half a teaspoon for every teaspoon of sugar. Granulated stevia blends (which bulk it up with a filler like erythritol) convert cup-for-cup with sugar, making them easier to use in recipes. Monk fruit sweetener works similarly. Granulated monk fruit also converts 1:1 with sugar by volume, so you can follow a standard recipe without doing any math.
Both sweeteners are heat-stable enough for baking, though neither caramelizes the way sugar does. That means cookies and cakes may brown less and have a slightly different texture. Some people also notice a mild aftertaste with stevia, while monk fruit tends to taste cleaner. The American Diabetes Association’s 2025 Standards of Care supports using non-nutritive sweeteners like these in moderation and for the short term to reduce overall calorie and carbohydrate intake, with a general emphasis on water as the primary beverage.
Allulose: The Rare Sugar That Lowers Blood Glucose
Allulose is one of the more interesting options for people with diabetes because it doesn’t just avoid raising blood sugar: it may actually help lower it. It’s a rare sugar found naturally in small amounts in figs, raisins, and maple syrup, and it tastes about 70% as sweet as table sugar.
Your body absorbs allulose through the small intestine but doesn’t convert it into energy. It contributes essentially zero calories. What makes it unusual is that when consumed alongside regular sugar or carbohydrates, it appears to blunt the blood sugar spike. In a prospective crossover study published in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, adding 7.5 to 10 grams of allulose to a 50-gram sugar load significantly reduced blood glucose at the 30-minute mark compared to placebo. The effect was dose-dependent, meaning more allulose produced a bigger reduction.
Researchers believe several mechanisms are at work. Allulose may boost a gut hormone called GLP-1 that helps regulate insulin. It also appears to slow the breakdown of carbohydrates in the intestine by inhibiting certain digestive enzymes. For practical purposes, this means sprinkling allulose on oatmeal or using it in a sauce that contains real carbohydrates could help smooth out your post-meal glucose curve.
Allulose bakes well, browns like real sugar, and dissolves in liquids. It’s typically sold in granulated form and can replace sugar roughly cup-for-cup, though you may want slightly more since it’s less sweet. The FDA does not require it to be listed as an added sugar on nutrition labels, so it won’t inflate the “Added Sugars” line on packaged foods that use it.
Sugar Alcohols: Benefits and Limits
Sugar alcohols like erythritol, xylitol, and sorbitol are common in sugar-free candy, protein bars, and chewing gum. They contain fewer calories than sugar and produce a smaller blood glucose response because your body only partially absorbs them. Erythritol in particular is nearly zero-calorie and has almost no glycemic impact, which is why it’s often blended with stevia or monk fruit to add bulk.
The main downside is digestive discomfort. Sugar alcohols that aren’t fully absorbed ferment in the large intestine, pulling in water and producing gas. Sorbitol is the worst offender: the laxative threshold is roughly 0.17 grams per kilogram of body weight for men and 0.24 grams per kilogram for women. For a 150-pound man, that’s only about 12 grams, which is easy to hit with a couple of sugar-free candies. Erythritol is better tolerated, with a laxative threshold around 0.66 grams per kilogram for men and 0.80 grams per kilogram for women, meaning a 150-pound person can handle roughly 45 to 55 grams before symptoms appear.
However, erythritol has come under scrutiny for a different reason. A 2024 study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology found that consuming 30 grams of erythritol caused a more than 1,000-fold increase in blood plasma levels and acutely enhanced platelet clotting activity in healthy volunteers. Separate observational data from both US and European cohorts linked higher fasting erythritol levels with increased three-year risk of heart attack, stroke, or death. This research is still evolving, but if you have existing cardiovascular risk factors, it’s worth keeping your erythritol intake moderate and discussing it with your care team.
Coconut Sugar and Honey: Not as Safe as They Sound
Many “natural” sweeteners are marketed as healthier alternatives, but for blood sugar management they’re only marginally better than white sugar. Coconut sugar has a glycemic index of 35, compared to about 65 for table sugar, which sounds impressive until you realize it still contains the same amount of carbohydrate per teaspoon. It will raise your blood glucose, just a bit more slowly. Raw honey has a glycemic index around 55 and carries roughly 17 grams of carbs per tablespoon.
Both contain trace minerals and antioxidants that plain sugar lacks, but the amounts are nutritionally insignificant at the small quantities you’d use as a sweetener. If you strongly prefer the flavor of honey in tea or coconut sugar in a recipe, treating them as regular sugar in your carb count is the safest approach. They are not free passes.
Reading Labels for Hidden Sugars
Sugar alcohols occupy a gray area on nutrition labels. The FDA allows manufacturers to list them voluntarily under Total Carbohydrate, but only requires it when the packaging makes a health claim about sugar or sugar alcohols. This means a product could contain sorbitol or erythritol without calling it out separately on the Nutrition Facts panel. Your best move is to scan the ingredient list, where all sweeteners must be named.
Allulose, as mentioned, does not count toward Added Sugars or Total Sugars on the label, so a product sweetened with allulose may show very low sugar numbers even though you can taste sweetness. Sugar alcohols, when listed, appear on their own line under Total Carbohydrate. Many people with diabetes subtract half the sugar alcohol grams from total carbs when calculating their effective carb intake, since sugar alcohols are only partially absorbed. Erythritol is the exception: because virtually none of it is metabolized, some people subtract the full amount.
Practical Substitution Tips
Switching sweeteners in cooking takes a little experimentation. Here’s a quick reference for the most common swaps:
- Granulated monk fruit or stevia blends: Replace sugar 1:1 by volume. Easiest for beginners.
- Pure stevia (jar form): Use half the volume. One teaspoon of sugar equals half a teaspoon of stevia.
- Allulose: Use slightly more than a 1:1 ratio to match sweetness, since it’s about 70% as sweet as sugar. It browns and caramelizes normally.
- Erythritol: Roughly 1:1 by volume but only 60 to 70% as sweet. Works well blended with a high-intensity sweetener like stevia.
In baking, sugar does more than sweeten. It adds moisture, helps doughs spread, and creates a tender crumb. Allulose mimics these structural roles most closely because it behaves like a real sugar during heating. Stevia and monk fruit blends handle sweetness well but may produce denser, drier results in cakes and cookies. Adding a tablespoon of unsweetened applesauce or an extra egg yolk can compensate for the lost moisture and binding.
For cold drinks, sauces, and dressings, any of these sweeteners dissolve and work without issue. Liquid stevia drops are especially convenient for beverages since they mix instantly with no grittiness.