Hi Allison,

It's been a year since I read Elaine Gottschall's book on the SCD, so I can't remember all the nitty gritty specifics. I do recall monosaccharides are what you want, so you could try buying glucose powder or glucose syrup to use. Agave is 90% pure fructose (another monosaccharide) so that would probably work too. Elaine's website says that agave and corn syrup are illegal, though I don't know why as corn syrup is pure monosaccharides.

Alternatively, you could try Splenda. Powdered formulations I think have dextrose (aka glucose), but I think the liquid one does not (it's just the pure, artifical sucralose). Along those same lines, you could try "sugar alcohols" like xylitol, erythritol, etc. If you were to go the artifical route, I would cook the rhubarb down in water and cool, and then add Splenda/etc once cooled. Typically artificial sweeteners don't do well when heated.

Finally, while I've not yet treated anyone with the SCD (I'm a dietitian), I've often wondered if one could take digestive enzymes with each meal to help with breakdown of sugars, allowing the person to liberalize their diet a little (in other words, make table sugar [sucrose] OK). This might be something to ask your healthcare practitioner, or experiment with. Enzymatica makes excellent but expensive digestive enzymes. Swanson Vitamins does also, but much cheaper.

Finally finally, the SCD works on the premise of dysbiosis of the gut -- meaning there's lots of bad guys hanging around creating toxins, so eliminating their food source (carbs) is why this works. Given that, taking a high quality probiotic I think is key. I have had patients with IBD say they've gone into remission when they began probiotics. Theralac is my probiotic of choice. (available from swansonvitamins.com)

Good luck!

can you use applesauce? i know that it's often a sub for butter in many recipes, but it definitely has sweetening properties. i added a bit to my last rhubarb/strawberry crumble to make up for both a bit of sugar and butter and it was delish.

I just read Elaine's website, and apparently dextrose, corn syrup, fructose, Splenda, sugar alcohols and digestive enzymes are all "illegal." LOL! So, I guess disregard my post entirely. :)

Sounds like honey or legal artifical sweeteners are your best bet. Consider stevia too.

(I saw that stevia is "illegal" but the reasoning is highly suspect -- the entire argument is that steviol is a terpene with a chemical structure similiar to steroids. With my knowledge of food science and organic chemistry, I have to say this reasoning is just stupid IMHO. If that were the case, lemons, limes, coffee, most herbs, and anything with vitamin A or beta carotene would be illegal as they ALL contain terpenes. Many, many plant products contain terpenes. Also, eggs and anything with cholesterol -- beef, poultry, bacon, etc -- would also be illegal since cholesterol is the basic molecular structure for steroids in the body. So, please don't discount stevia based on this exceedingly poor reasoning.)

I just made a rhubarb crumble this weekend and cut the sugar by a third. I think I could've gone further.

For 3 cups of cubed rhubarb, I used 2/3 cup sugar, but would've been just as happy to cut it by 50% and go down to 1/2 cup.

Yes! Barbara/Camille Kingsolver's recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble uses honey instead of sugar, and it's delicious. A quick online search should bring it up.

Honey is an excellent sweetener to use with rhubarb. It tends to help mellow more sharp, acidic flavors.

I actually think Honey would be a LOVELY soft sweetness. mmm Now I do think its time to go and get me a big bunch and cook it up!

I use saccharine to sweeten all my fruits. It's my favorite sweetener, both the liquid and powder form. Saccharine has a clean flavor, heightens the fruit flavors and doesn't upset my blood chemisty. I've cooked with saccharine for 35years without any problems. Feel free to sweeten your rhubarb with saccharine instead of honey...you will like the results.

Thanks for the suggestions. What ratio of honey to sugar do you use for substitutions? How much honey equals how much sugar?

One way I cut sugar in rhubarb is soaking it in baking soda for 20 minutes. Essentially, I chop it up to the size I need, put it in cold water with a tablespoon of baking soda, and let it soak or 20 minutes. The water turns gray. Rinse it off and use.

Essentially, the baking soda is neutralizing some of the acid, making the rhubarb the perfect shade of tangy. It maintains enough tart to give you what you want, and only requires 1/4 of the sugar otherwise needed. I eat it raw or use it in savory dishes this way.

What about Agave? It's really low GI so it may be more suitable for your diet than sugar...

i haven't cooked rhubarb for a while but last time i did, i followed a recipe where the rhubarb was stewed in orange juice... it didn't have any sugar added, apart from what was naturally in the juice, and it still ended up tangy and sweet.

i guess you could also use apple juice or white grape juice as a natural sweetener?

just remembered! the stewed rhubarb was going into a sweetened shortcrust pie, and was supposed to be served with cream, so it didn't matter that it wasn't very sweet in itself...

if you're going to serve it plain it might still be a little tart, but would only require a table spoon or two of sugar, rather than a cup!