Ok, I watched a cupcake wars and the theme was for fan appreciation for an MHL Hockey team. One of the decorators used isomalt for a decoration and one of the judges said the isomalt was not edible. WHAT? That is exactly the opposite that I was told and have read.

Can someone help me with this? Why did he say that? The decorator was mortified and I was stunned.

Sandy

Well that judge must have been on something because it's just a sugar substitute or a type of sugar alcohol. Read the entire deffinition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomalt

Three facts I found veryyy interesting is that it has very little effect on a person's blood sugar, it doesn't promote tooth decay, and it's a natural sugar alcohol that is produced from beets.

I saw it and I assumed that his French got in his way-- or at least, I hope that was it.

Perhaps he confuses the idea of something being hard to eat with something being "inedible"???

Rae

If you look at the bottom of the deffinition I posted, it says a list of countries that Isomalt is approved for use in. I'm not sure why some countries wouldn't approve it for use, but I did not see 'France' on that list (although they said the list may or may not contain all the actual countries allowing it) so my thinking is that maybe since his country doesn't alow its use...maybe he sees it as inediable to ALL.

I don't think it was a language barrier. He told her it was not edible and they all understood that. And none of the others corrected him.

When I first thought of using it I did read up on it and did see the positive comparisons to sugar. Which is why I was stunned when I watched it. I yelled at the tv, "You're Wrong! That's not true, " but he did not hear me.

I did see she did still use it when she made it to the final round. So I am thinking that in the course of the filming someone must have said something.

But there was no on-air correction to his statement. Which surprised me even more.

I didn't imply that the baker(s) didn't "understand" Florian.

I was saying that perhaps Florian believed the word "inedible" , in English, means something is very hard to eat versus something is not to be eaten at all. If he still thinks in French, and judging by his speech patterns, I'd guess that he often does, some words just don't translate directly.

Heck, I consider grapefruit "inedible" because, to me, it's bitter. It's the wrong use of th word, but it describes my personal feeling about the fruit.

I'd hope that someone did call him on it but that it was cut out of the taping for editing, but people are usually pretty timid around "judges".

I think the producers/directors should have made sure that it was clarified once the program aired, but it seems that they never try to clear up false information--case in point was a Cake Boss show where Buddy kept chirping about how he was going to coat the entire surface of a cake with black disco dust because it was edible. Blatantly incorrect because it's non-toxic but not edible. No correction over several airings. Very frustrating when trying to explain that to civilians.

Rae

Isomalt isn't inedible, but it should not be eaten in large quanities because it can cause nasty little tummy issues. This is the same reason you will see a caution on sugar free candy packages to limit how many you eat at a time.

I read the same thing TexasSugar said. But this is the same with really any sugar and sweets. Everything in moderation.