Best Keto Sweeteners: The 3 I Use and the 5 I Avoid

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I have used NOW BetterStevia liquid since 2010, years before I went keto in 2017. That same year I started using Sparkle allulose and it has been the sweetener in my kitchen ever since. I’ve been wanting to write this best keto sweeteners article for a long time. Over the years, a lot more data has come out on artificial sweeteners and many have significant downsides. Along the way I also used erythritol and xylitol, the two sweeteners many keto recipes still call for.

I’ve spent some time with the research at multiple intervals over the years and my pantry list of approved artificial sweeteners got a lot shorter. Today I use three keto sweeteners: allulose, stevia and monk fruit. The monk fruit has to be made without erythritol. This article explains why I landed there, what the studies say about each option, the five I avoid and how to read a label so a “monk fruit” bag that is mostly erythritol does not end up in your cart.

Every keto friendly sugar substitute below gets the same treatment: what it is, how it counts toward net carbs, what it does to blood sugar and what gives me pause. Where the evidence is thin or comes from a company that sells the product, I say so.

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The Best Keto Sweeteners: My Short Answer

The best keto sweeteners, in my view, are allulose, pure stevia and monk fruit that is not blended with erythritol. If you are wondering what sweeteners are keto friendly and still easy to defend on the research, these are the three. All three have essentially zero net carbs, none of them carries the cardiovascular signals that have shown up for erythritol and xylitol since 2023 and together they cover everything from coffee to ice cream.

These are the three I use:

• Allulose, best for baking, ice cream, syrups and anything that needs bulk. I have used allulose since 2017 and now Sparkle Wellness Organic Allulose (free shipping over $30)
• Stevia in liquid form, best for coffee, tea and drinks. NOW BetterStevia has been on my counter since 2010.
• Monk fruit, but only the erythritol-free version. I use Lakanto (code healnourishgrow to save 15 percent), either its monk fruit extract drops or its Classic Monkfruit Sweetener with Allulose.

And these are the five I avoid:

• Erythritol, because of the platelet and heart event research covered below.
• Xylitol, for a similar platelet signal and because it is toxic to dogs.
• Maltitol and the other partly absorbed sugar alcohols, which make “sugar free” candy less sugar free than the label suggests.
• Sucralose, because of glucose and microbiome findings and an impurity flagged in lab screening.
• Aspartame, which I simply see no reason to use when better options exist.

In small amounts, none of the five is likely to knock you out of ketosis. For most of them, avoiding them is a long-term health decision rather than a carb decision. I explain the evidence for each one so you can make your own call.

Keto Sweeteners Compared at a Glance

Here is every keto friendly sugar substitute in this article on one table: how it counts toward net carbs, what the research says about blood sugar and the reason I use it or skip it. The sections below give the detail and the studies behind each row.

Allulose: My Everyday Sugar Substitute

Allulose is a rare sugar that tastes and behaves like table sugar at about 70 percent of the sweetness. It is the keto sugar substitute I use most. It occurs naturally in small amounts in foods like figs and raisins and the allulose you buy is made commercially from other sugars. Your body gets almost no energy from it, which is the reason it is treated differently on food labels.

The FDA recognized that difference in its 2019 decision on allulose labeling, finalized in 2020. Manufacturers can leave allulose out of the Total Sugars and Added Sugars lines on a Nutrition Facts label and count it at 0.4 calories per gram instead of the 4 calories per gram for sugar. It still has to appear in Total Carbohydrate, which matters for the net carb math later in this article.

What the research says about allulose and blood sugar

The best evidence is a 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It pooled 12 controlled human trials of allulose and found it lowered the glucose and insulin response after a meal, rated moderate certainty. It did not find changes in HbA1c, fasting glucose, blood lipids or body composition. So allulose looks good for the spike after a meal, not like a metabolic treatment. I would be wary of anyone selling it as one.

Allulose side effects and how much is too much

The main side effect of allulose is digestive: gas, bloating or diarrhea if you eat a lot at once. The most specific numbers come from a dose-escalation study in young Korean adults published in Nutrients, which suggested a maximum single dose of about 0.4 grams per kilogram of body weight and a maximum daily total of about 0.9 g/kg. For a 150-pound woman that works out to roughly 27 grams at one time. Two caveats: the study was not randomized and two co-authors worked for a large Korean food company. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

In nine years of using it, I have not had stomach issues with allulose (but I’m never really consuming that much at once). If you are new to it, start with small portions and see how you do. I go deeper on allulose safety in a dedicated article, coming soon.

Allulose is my first choice wherever sugar has to do more than sweeten. It dissolves, browns and caramelizes much like sugar, which is why it is the sweetener in my sugar-free vanilla ice cream and works well in a keto simple syrup.

Stevia: The One I Have Used Since 2010

Stevia is a plant extract many times sweeter than sugar, so a few drops of a pure liquid replace a spoonful of sugar with no carbs at all. I have used NOW BetterStevia liquid since 2010. The original version is organic stevia leaf extract in water with a little organic cane alcohol, per NOW’s product page. This is the one I buy.

The research on stevia is reassuring for blood sugar. In a small trial published in Appetite, 31 adults ate preloads sweetened with stevia, aspartame or sugar before meals on separate days. Stevia lowered blood sugar after the meal compared with sugar and lowered insulin compared with both sugar and aspartame. People did not make up the missing calories by eating more later. It was a short study, but it points in the right direction.

Stevia is not inert for your gut. In a 2022 randomized trial published in Cell, 120 healthy adults took saccharin, sucralose, aspartame or stevia for two weeks at doses below the acceptable daily intake. All four changed the gut and mouth microbiome. Only saccharin and sucralose significantly impaired glucose tolerance. That is one of the reasons stevia stayed on my list and sucralose did not.

The two downsides are taste and blending. Some people find stevia bitter, especially in large amounts. A liquid lets you add it a drop at a time. And many powdered stevia products are mostly erythritol or dextrose with a little stevia mixed in. If you want pure stevia, read the ingredient list, not the front of the box.

Monk Fruit: Read the Label First

Monk fruit sweetener comes from mogrosides, the sweet compounds in luo han guo, a small melon native to southern Asia. Pure monk fruit extract has no carbs or calories, but most monk fruit sweetener sold in the US is mainly erythritol. That is the single most useful fact in this article if you are trying to avoid erythritol.

Lakanto, one of the best-known brands, is a good example. Its popular Classic and Golden sweeteners list erythritol first and monk fruit extract second. Lakanto’s own FAQ says monk fruit makes up about 20% to 40% of the sweetness in those blends. Lakanto also makes erythritol-free options and those are the ones I buy: its liquid monk fruit extract drops and its Classic Monkfruit Sweetener with Allulose, whose ingredients are allulose and monk fruit extract, nothing else. Code HEALNOURISHGROW takes 15% off at Lakanto. The drops contain only water, monk fruit extract and flavoring. They are intensely sweet: Lakanto says four drops match a teaspoon of sugar. The allulose version is mostly allulose with monk fruit boosting the sweetness, which is why it measures like sugar.

The honest limit on monk fruit is how little human research exists. A 2026 review of mogrosides published in Nutrients describes promising effects on blood sugar but notes that most of the evidence comes from cell and animal studies because clinical trial data are limited. Monk fruit has a long history of use and I am comfortable with it, but I would not tell you it has proven health benefits.

Why I Stopped Using Erythritol

I stopped using erythritol completely because three studies from 2023 to 2025 linked it to stickier platelets and higher heart event risk. I also did not need it once allulose was easy to buy. It is not proven to cause heart attacks. But I used erythritol back in the day before I dug into the research and once I read these papers, it’s not something I’ll ever use going forward.

The 2023 study that started it

Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic reported in Nature Medicine that people with the highest blood levels of erythritol had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke or death over three years. They found the signal in 1,157 people undergoing cardiac evaluation, then confirmed it in a US group of 2,149 and a European group of 833. The highest quarter of erythritol levels had about 1.8 and 2.2 times the risk of the lowest quarter. In the lab, erythritol made platelets more reactive. And when eight healthy volunteers drank an erythritol-sweetened beverage, their blood levels stayed elevated for more than two days.

The 2024 follow-up in healthy people

The obvious objection was that sick people make more erythritol, so the team ran a direct test, published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Ten healthy volunteers drank 30 grams of erythritol and ten drank 30 grams of glucose. Erythritol raised blood levels more than a thousandfold and made platelets more responsive in every single participant. Glucose did not. The researchers describe 30 grams as a typical amount of erythritol in a single sweetened drink or snack.

The 2025 brain blood vessel study

A team at the University of Colorado reported in the Journal of Applied Physiology that human brain blood vessel cells exposed to erythritol, at a concentration matching one sweetened drink, produced more oxidative stress, less nitric oxide and more of a vessel-constricting protein. They also released less of the enzyme that breaks down clots. This was in cells in a dish, which is the weakest kind of evidence. It is the source of the “erythritol blood brain barrier study” headlines. It fits the pattern rather than proving anything.

The case for erythritol

Some researchers think the alarm is premature and their points are fair. A 2023 review published in Nutrients notes that your body makes erythritol itself, so high blood levels may be a marker of poor glucose metabolism rather than a cause of heart disease. People born with metabolic conditions that keep their erythritol levels high do not show more clotting. Most long-term animal studies did not find platelet problems. The authors conclude that only long-term clinical trials can settle it.

My read: the observational data cannot prove cause, but the 2024 study gave people erythritol on purpose and their platelets changed. That moves it past a simple marker story for me. Nobody has shown harm from a sprinkle in your coffee. I just do not see a reason to eat it daily when allulose, stevia and monk fruit do the same jobs.

Xylitol, Maltitol and Other Sugar Alcohols

I avoid the other sugar alcohols too: xylitol because of a similar platelet signal and maltitol because it is partly absorbed, so “sugar free” products made with it are not as low carb as they look.

The same Cleveland Clinic group published a xylitol study in the European Heart Journal in 2024. In 2,149 people undergoing cardiac evaluation, those in the top third of blood xylitol levels had about 1.6 times the three-year risk of a major cardiac event compared with the bottom third. In ten healthy volunteers, a xylitol-sweetened drink raised blood levels sharply and made platelets more responsive in all of them. It carries the same caveats as the erythritol work, but it points the same direction.

Xylitol has one more problem if you share your kitchen with a dog. The FDA warns that xylitol is dangerous for dogs because it triggers a rapid insulin release that can drop their blood sugar to life-threatening levels. It turns up in gum, mints, some nut butters and baked goods.

Maltitol, sorbitol and isomalt are the sugar alcohols you find in sugar-free chocolate and candy. A 2021 review of sugar alcohols published in the Journal of Food and Drug Analysis explains that they are partially digested and absorbed, so their effect on blood sugar varies by type. Higher doses bring digestive side effects. If a “zero net carb” candy bar subtracts every gram of maltitol, the real number is higher.

Artificial Sweeteners on Keto: Sucralose and Aspartame

Artificial sweeteners on keto will not add carbs or knock you out of ketosis in pure form, but I avoid sucralose and aspartame for reasons that have nothing to do with carbs. If you have been searching for the best keto artificial sweetener or which artificial sweeteners are safe, here is what the research shows for the two you will see most often.

Sucralose (Splenda)

Sucralose has two strikes against it. In the 2022 Cell trial above, sucralose and saccharin were the two sweeteners that significantly impaired glucose tolerance. The effect depended on each person’s gut bacteria. Then in 2023 a paper published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health reported that sucralose-6-acetate, a manufacturing impurity found at up to 0.67 percent in commercial sucralose, was genotoxic in screening assays and impaired the barrier in a model of human intestinal tissue. Those are lab findings, not proof of harm in people. Combined, they were enough for me. Also check the packets: many tabletop sucralose products are mostly dextrose or maltodextrin, which do count as carbs.

Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet)

In 2023 the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified aspartame as possibly carcinogenic to humans, Group 2B, based on limited evidence. At the same time the WHO and FAO expert committee kept the acceptable daily intake at 40 mg per kilogram of body weight. The WHO’s summary notes that a 70 kg adult would need more than nine to 14 cans of diet soda a day to exceed it. So the realistic risk at normal intake looks small. I avoid aspartame anyway because the Appetite trial found a higher insulin response with aspartame than with stevia and I already have options I like better.

Saccharin, the pink packet, landed alongside sucralose in the Cell trial as one of the two that impaired glucose tolerance. If you are asking which keto artificial sweeteners are the healthiest, my answer is that the plant-based options on my list have the cleaner record.

How Keto Sweeteners Count Toward Net Carbs

Most keto sweeteners count as zero net carbs, which is what you want from any keto sugar substitute, but how you get to zero depends on the sweetener. The label does not always make it obvious.

• Allulose shows up in Total Carbohydrate but not in Total Sugars, per the FDA guidance. Subtract it to get net carbs, the same way you subtract fiber.
• Pure stevia and pure monk fruit extract are used in such tiny amounts that they add nothing. Blends are a different story: check what the filler is.
• Erythritol is usually subtracted in full under sugar alcohols.
• Xylitol and maltitol are partly absorbed. Many keto trackers count part of them rather than none.
• Dextrose, maltodextrin and other fillers in packets are real carbs. A single packet is small, but several a day add up.
• Fiber-based sweeteners such as inulin and soluble tapioca fiber show up in some keto products. I do not use them, so I have left them out of my comparison.

Labels are only half the picture. People respond differently and the Cell trial showed that the same sweetener can affect two people differently depending on their gut bacteria. If you have access to a continuous glucose monitor, testing your own response is the most useful thing you can do. If you are still working out your daily carb target, my keto calculator will give you a starting point.

Which Keto Sweetener for Which Job

Match the sweetener to the job: liquid stevia for drinks, allulose for anything that needs bulk or texture and an allulose and monk fruit blend when you want a straight swap for sugar in a recipe.

Because allulose is about 70 percent as sweet as sugar, recipes need roughly a third more of it for the same sweetness. The Lakanto blend avoids that math because the monk fruit makes up the difference. If you want sweet snack ideas that do not depend on any of this, my list of keto snacks has plenty. My keto food list covers the rest of the pantry.

What to Look for on the Label

The fastest way to avoid erythritol and fillers is to skip the front of the package and read the ingredient list, which goes from most to least by weight.

• Monk fruit sweetener without erythritol: the first ingredient should be allulose or monk fruit extract (liquid drops list water first, then monk fruit extract). If erythritol is listed first, it is an erythritol product with monk fruit added.
• Stevia: look for stevia leaf extract or steviol glycosides in water, glycerin or alcohol. Powdered packets often lead with erythritol, dextrose or maltodextrin.
• Allulose: one ingredient. Sparkle Wellness Organic Allulose, the one I use, is certified organic allulose and nothing else. Sparkle ships free with this link on orders over $30.
• “Sugar free” packaged foods: scan for erythritol, xylitol, maltitol, sucralose and aspartame, which often appear together in protein bars, chocolate and drinks.

If you are trying to decide between two of the sweeteners on my list for a specific use, I am putting together a head-to-head comparison of allulose, stevia and monk fruit, coming soon.

After sixteen years of stevia and nine of allulose, my sweetener shelf is simple: allulose, stevia and monk fruit without erythritol. None of the keto sweeteners I skip will ruin a diet in small amounts. I am not trying to scare anyone off a packet in a restaurant. But the research since 2023 gave me a clear reason to drop erythritol and xylitol and the three I kept do everything I need. Start with the job you need a sweetener for, read the label and let your own body have the final say.