Weird food review: Rotten Gummy Worms!

Curious about the low-cal sweetener allulose? Your mileage may vary, from here to Uranus

Warning: This post contains live worms.* Viewer discretion is advised.

Buckle up, kids -- it's about to get bumpy! The folks at EatRotten.com sent me a free sampler box of their new, lower sugar candy -- Rotten Gummy Worms. I'm a registered dietitian, and this is my honest review as a nutrition professional.

 

Other than the sample, I'm uncompensated and there is no marketing agreement. But is there...flavor?!?

Firstly, as someone who remembers the 80s rather better than I would like, the aesthetic really hits the sweet spot between late 70s punk/pop art + early 80s children's toy and cereal marketing. It’s impossible not to be enchanted. Lower sugar as a nutritional messaging trope is from the 70s, too, but the chosen sweetie ingredient here is decidedly modern -- allulose.

More on that later, though. If it doesn't tickle the taste buds, the sweetener hardly matters, does it? There are both Original and Sour varieties, and they come in 4 flavors: mango, raspberry (blue, natch), strawberry, and watermelon. I'm a sour aficionado -- let's try those first!

Looks like the flavors are only in combination -- mango/raspberry, and strawberry/watermelon. I like that the corresponding colors are complimentary on the color wheel. So the look is well-composed, but is the flavor decomposed?

Nice sourness, but it's not Warheads level. If you're looking to make your tongue shrivel up, look elsewhere. (Try salted licorice...more on that another day.) I like the crunch of the sour coating. The two ends of each worm do indeed have different flavors.

The texture is a surprise! I personally prefer it to traditional, heavily gelatin-based gummy candy. It's not bounce-backish, not tough. It's more like gumdrops or real fruit snacks. They actually dissolve a bit instead of just gradually discorporating like a fishing lure in a Bass-O-Matic. 

Now for the original...Hmmm. I find this version is less successful. The sour tang is important to a fruity flavor, to me. If you really hate sour, though, or if you prefer very smooth textures with no crunchy bits, these will be your jam. Congrats to whomever totally nailed the disgusting dull pink of an actual earthworm in the strawberry half of the un-sour sprinkled ones. That takes real guts.

On to the other features of this product: health and sustainability. The packaging says it's compostible (Rotten rots, get it?), gluten free, 60% less sugar, and no artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols, and it’s the lack of those last two things that really appeals to me.

As a registered dietitian in clinical practice, I often see people who have IBS-like symptoms that improve if they eliminate no- or low-glucose sweeteners like sucralose, agave, high fructose corn syrup, erythritol, and even stevia. A lot of people can do some of those but not others, and a little trial and error can help figure out their personal response.

Even if a person tolerates low cal sweeteners well, though, I don't love them for otherwise healthy people, although they make sense for certain conditions. There's quite a bit of research showing that might not help with weight loss, and they may be associated with increased risk of a lot of chronic diseases. 

If you use them often, I encourage you to read about them, talk to your doctors, and decide what's best for you. There are lots of studies available online, but here's a very short piece with a few useful links.

Back to Rotten Worms, though. They don't use any of those things I don't love — they use allulose. Is it different? Yes. It's a naturally-occurring monosaccharide that humans don't digest well, so it appears not to affect blood sugar as much as sugar. Although that's 38 grams (!!!) of carb, it *may* not affect you the way carbs from sugar would

Again, your personal mileage may vary. There's an article here with links that may help you and your medical team decide whether allulose might work for you. 

Rotten went for the gross-out package design, so there's no sense in shying away from the nitty-gritty of artificial sweeteners as I alluded to earlier: the GI effects can be VERY UNPLEASANT, in sort of the same way that Kane had very unpleasant side effects from getting face-hugged in the movie Alien. (If you've never heard of this artificial sweetener phenomenon, read the Haribo sugar free gummy bears reviews. They will answer questions you never knew you didn't want to know the answer to.) 

But if allulose is different in metabolic terms, is it also different in its capacity to wreak havoc on your poor little intestines? Maybe! Here's the thing, though. That linked study was on healthy people. Even people with iron bellies will have a tolerance level for allulose, and if they exceed it, they may regret it.

And if you are an IBS person, your mileage will vary more than the estimated battery life of a 2018 Tesla. It will vary from here to Uranus. Some of you, mostly the ones with what is delicately referred to as IBS-C, *may* actually feel better eating some extra allulose and fiber.

…And you might not.

Those of you with mixed or IBS-D, however, might hate it. If you exceed your tolerance, you might regret it intensely. Repeatedly. Until you see stars and have to leave work under a cloud of...embarrassment. (At best.)

It can take a few days to find out how you react to new fibers and carbohydrates, especially if you have IBS. Introduce such things VERY SLOWLY. Remember that tolerance level may be cumulative, so that if you eat a piece of this and are fine, you might not be fine if you eat some every day for 3 or 4 days. 

To sum up, I like this product way more than I like most reduced sugar candy, especially the sour ones. They've got a great texture, and they are very likely to affect blood sugar a lot less than other candy, hopefully without the possible metabolic effects of other sweeteners, although I always want to see more long-term research. And, they may do that without causing GI upset for a lot of people.

I love the sustainable packaging idea and hope to see more of that. I love that they're allergy friendly, and I greatly prefer the texture to other gummy candies. But, if you have IBS, remember to use caution. These may contain hazardous material...and your belly might not be able to contain it for long.

 *No worms were harmed in the making of this review.