Four Ingredients Scarier Than Anything at Your Front Door

This Halloween, the scariest thing in the snack aisle isn't sugar. It's what's replacing it.

We've been reading ingredient labels since 2008. Old habit. And lately the "healthy" snack aisle has us more spooked than any haunted house — "zero sugar" and "keto" on the front - BEWARE!

So we pulled the four ingredients that worry us most and dug into what the research actually says. Here's what we found.

1. Erythritol

A sugar alcohol used to sweeten "zero sugar" snacks and drinks. It shows up in tiny amounts in some fruits, but the kind in packaged foods is made by fermenting corn sugar — and used in much bigger doses.

Your gut. In 2023, Europe's food safety agency set a daily limit for erythritol: about 34 grams for a 150-pound adult, because amounts above that can cause diarrhea. It then estimated that people in every age group it looked at were already eating more than that.

Your blood. In 2024, Cleveland Clinic researchers gave 20 healthy volunteers either an erythritol-sweetened drink (about the amount in a pint of keto ice cream) or a sugar-sweetened one. In the erythritol group, lab tests of their blood showed that platelets (the blood cells that form clots) reacted more strongly. The sugar group's didn't. The honest part: it was a small study and the FDA still considers erythritol safe. But, no thanks. We'll pass. 

2. Guar Gum & Xanthan Gum

Thickeners that keep products smooth and stop them from separating on the shelf.

In 2021, researchers exposed human gut bacteria to 20 common food additives in the lab. Guar gum and xanthan gum were two of the worst performers. They shifted the balance of gut bacteria and caused them to produce more flagellin — a molecule your immune system responds to with inflammation.

The honest part: that was a lab study, not a study in people, and regulators consider both gums safe for now. But here's the thing — we don't need them. Our coconut oil firms up naturally when it's chilled. No thickeners required.

3. Palm Kernel Oil

Palm kernel oil is a close cousin of coconut oil — the fats are similar. The difference is what happens before it reaches you.

Most palm kernel oil is refined, bleached, and deodorized — heated to over 400°F to strip out its natural flavor and smell. That high-heat step is also where contaminants like glycidyl esters can form, which is why Europe caps their levels in refined oils.

We use organic raw virgin coconut oil. Never refined. Nothing to strip out.

4. Vegetable Glycerin

A thick, sweet liquid. About 70% of the world's crude glycerin is a byproduct of making biodiesel (yes, fuel) — then it's refined to food grade. In snacks, it adds sweetness and keeps things soft on the shelf for months.

It doesn't count as "sugar" on the label — but it has about the same calories per gram as sugar.

And a seasonal footnote: after 21 young children in the UK and Ireland were hospitalized from drinking glycerol-sweetened slushies (all recovered), the UK's Food Standards Agency now advises that kids under 7 shouldn't have them at all. A snack contains far less than a slushie — but "zero sugar" doesn't mean "zero effect."

One We're Watching: Allulose

Not every new ingredient is a monster. Allulose is one we're genuinely curious about.

It's a "rare sugar" found in tiny amounts in figs, raisins — and even maple syrup. The allulose in packaged foods is made from corn sugar using enzymes. Most of it passes through your body without being used for energy, so it has about a tenth of the calories of sugar and barely moves blood sugar. That's why, since 2020, the FDA has allowed brands to leave it off the "Sugars" and "Added Sugars" lines on the nutrition label.

So far, human studies look reassuring — the main complaint is bloating or stomach upset at larger amounts. But it's still new, and long-term research is thin. For now, it's too early for us to put it in a Cup.

Have you tried allulose? We want to hear from you. Love it, hate it, tummy trouble or none at all — reply to this email or drop a comment. We're listening.

What We Put in Our Cups Instead

Organic raw virgin coconut oil, raw almond flour, real nut butters, and simple all natural sweetness: organic maple syrup in our Chocolate Peanut Butter and Almond Butter Cups, and organic tapioca syrup in our new Cookies N Crème Cups.

No sugar alcohols. No gums. No palm. Never have, never will.

The Bottom Line

Your tummy called and said  “no more weird overly engineered sugar substitutes - just lower sugar snacks made from real organic sources found in nature”

Intentional Ingredients. Always.

Sources: EFSA, Re-evaluation of erythritol (E 968), 2023; Witkowski et al., Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, 2024; FDA evaluation of erythritol research, 2024; Naimi et al., Microbiome, 2021; EU Regulation 2023/915 (contaminants in food); Univar Solutions glycerin market data; Archives of Disease in Childhood, 2025 (glycerol intoxication in children); UK Food Standards Agency slush-ice drink guidance, June 2025; FDA Guidance on the Declaration of Allulose, 2020.

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