I get this question a lot more frequently than I would expect! Everybody is so hip these days!
We used to make kombucha at home years ago. And depending on how long you let it ferment, there is more or less sugar in the resulting drink right? Which you can usually taste. If it tastes super acidic and not sweet at all, then you know the culture has used most the sugar, and if it tastes a bit sweet, you know it still has more sugar in it.
This article on kombucha mentions that an 8 oz glass of kombucha, when fully fermented, will have between 2-6 grams of sugar.
4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon of sugar
So if your kombucha had 6 grams of sugar, that’s 1.5 full teaspoons worth of regular sugar in that drink. That seems like a lot doesn’t it? 2 grams, would be a 1/2 of a teaspoon, which doesn’t seem as bad.
I know most of us learn that “the sugar gets all used up” in the fermentation process of the Kombucha, but the degree of this varies- and for someone not on hCG and too concerned with sugar, you might consider it as ALL used up if you started with 1 cup of sugar and at the end there’s only 1 tsp of sugar still in the drink left- but 1 tsp of sugar for US on the diet is still a lot. Unless the kombucha tastes like pure vinegar, it likely still have a little sugar left it in it.
Simple sugar hits our bloodstream and blood sugar differently than say, 6 grams of sugar from a whole apple. The absorption is much faster, and that can be a negative on hCG.
If you decide to have some, please do check the labels because I saw some commercially prepared brands of kombucha that had a lot more sugar than the 2-6 grams.
I don’t know about you, but when I saw just how many teaspoons of sugar it takes in a big mug of something to make it truly taste sweet, I was shocked. It seemed like a lot. I’m used to stevia where a few sprinkles and the whole thing is super sweet already. I can easily put in an entire tablespoon of sugar into a mug and still taste almost no sweetness. So I’m not sure if you can go by taste alone- even if it doesn’t taste sweet, it could still have a tablespoon of sugar in it you know?
While I don’t have much in the way of user feedback to share with you on this, I do remember one hCG-er who sent us an email about kombucha and she mentioned it caused her some stalls. This doesn’t mean it would cause that for everyone.
I hope that helps you decide!
