No and sure. Slushies depend on a useful property of water: Sugar (and salt) dissolved in water lowers its freezing level under 32 levels Fahrenheit. Why? Solubles like sugar are chaos brokers. Sugar molecules transfer randomly, refuse to dissolve into ice, and intrude with water’s potential to type hydrogen bonds and switch crystalline. Some water molecules freeze, however sugar water doesn’t. Tada! Slush.
For those who attempt to make a slushie out of sugar-free soda, or sugar-free something, ice crystals will as a substitute type simply. The chrome steel freezing core will ice over and scrape on the auger, and ice cubes or hunks will collect mass within the slushie machine. The cylinder will begin to shake, then the machine will clunk, then ultimately you’ll in all probability break your machine: Low-sugar fail-safes on these units haven’t been overly dependable, alas. So don’t do that!
This doesn’t imply you’re doomed to large energy if you wish to make a slushie. Not each synthetic sweetener lowers freezing level appropriately, however the one which Ninja recommends for food plan slushies is allulose, a uncommon however naturally occurring sugar that’s 70 p.c as candy as primary sugar however isn’t metabolized successfully by the human digestive system. This implies it’s low in energy and doesn’t trigger insulin spikes—however as with a number of indigestibles, word that uncomfortable side effects can embody bloating or GI misery for some.
For best use in a slushie, purchase liquid allulose. Powdered variations additionally exist, however to make use of them, you’ll must make a easy syrup by heating up the powder in water to assist it dissolve, then let it cool. For those who simply attempt to drop the allulose powder into your machine with some Food regimen Coke, it won’t dissolve, and also you may nonetheless get ice formation. Or at the very least, I undoubtedly nonetheless obtained ice formation after I tried this on the Ninja, and needed to cease my machine.