Discovering the joys of maltitol

While reading a review for a new, maltitol-free chocolate bar called "Lean-up" http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=5711 I discovered the key to understanding the rather disturbing events that occured in our household one rather foggy evening awhile back.

According to the review: "...More than anything was the assurance in the back of my mind as I was eating it that I could rest easy and enjoy a low-carb chocolate bar for once without worrying about the consequences of doing so an hour after eating it. :) Lean-Up bars had NONE of that and were well worth each and every bite..."

Relieved to have finally found the answer to my "burning" question about what happened "the night the tubas came," I responded forthwith with this missive:

Hoo Boy! That explains it! I bought some great low-carb chocolate from Trader J's and noted that the whole bar supposedly contained 2 net carbs. Naturally, my wife and I daintily took one little piece each and congratulated ourselves on our restraint, and nibbled a tiny bit off a corner while making little bunnylike nose-squinchy giggles and shrugs at our naughtiness.

The next thing I knew the chocolate bar was gone in a brownish blur, there were pieces of wrapper in our teeth and strewn about the floor and our faces and furniture were smeared with grubby chocolatey finger-smudges. Ah, how we giggled yet again at our own weakness and utter humanity, and promised to make the next one last a little longer than 1.3 seconds.

Skip to three hours later. The rock-shivering cacaphony reverberating in our living room can best be described as sounding like an orchestral tuba section warming up, a dirigible rupturing and the earthy bla-a-atting tones of a fleet of diesel semis throwing on the "jake brakes" on a long downhill stretch, with the odd bassoon glissando thrown in to provide color, and flutey, schoolgirl-ish "skirt-lifter" flourishes blupping periodically from my soulmate.

I have never had gas so bad in my life. Not even close, and in my family "pull my finger" is considered a cooing utterance of affection, followed by the inevitable sound of a watermelon breaking in half.

The cramps alone were excruciating, much less the sore stomach muscles from simultaneously moaning in pain and laughing (which caused an odd "putt-putt" style nether-zephyr to emerge in staccato trumpet-blasts from our hindquarters, eliciting further torture to our already weakened respiratory systems). We were on all fours, barking from both ends. Not a pretty sight.

Or smell. You'll just have to imagine that, for words can only fail to deliver an account of such a horrendous assault on the olfactory organs, save to those who work in sewage treatment facilities or overcrowded South American prisons. If you need a prompt for a realistic simulation to catalog in your own mental flatulence-file, hold a teenager's wet sneaker up to one nostril and a freshly-opened bag of pork rinds to the other in a kitchen where cabbage is being overcooked. Then you might BEGIN to suggest a vague guess as to the essence.

Until I read this review and understood the magical hurricane-producing properties of maltitol on the digestive system, I had no idea why we had spontaneously erupted like a wind section in a John Cage score. We thought we had somehow insulted the Aztec gods of the bean harvest or something. Now that we know, we will avoid the detestable sugar-fraud in favor of something kinder to our poor abused starfish and easier on our laundry bill.

Fred Scuttle