If you're a low carber, you have a ton of options for finding no-calorie substitutes for sugar. What happens when you're trying to substitute for brown sugar or molasses?

First off, what IS brown sugar and molasses? Sugar, you know, comes from the sugar cane. This is a plant sort of like bamboo, and sugar is the substance inside.

Brown sugar is simply white sugar mixed with molasses! They mix between 3-6% molasses into sugar to get various shades of brown sugar.

Molasses is in fact a sugar product. When they take raw sugar and boil it, molasses is what comes off as a result. So in essence molasses is cooked, liquid sugar. Interestingly, molasses if fermented turns into rum.

So back to our problem. All of these items are raw sugar. How do you get a low carb version? The answer is that you can't yet. However, you can get something that tastes similar. Many recipes substitute maple syrup for molasses. There are in fact sugar-free maple syrups on the market. The traditional substitution is 1:1 for pure maple syrup to replace molasses.

So if you're looking to make a dish that requires molasses, get a sugar free maple syrup instead and use that. If you need brown sugar, mix some sugar free maple syrup with Splenda or another sweetener. The taste should be good enough to enjoy - and may become your new favorite!


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