As with any type of sugar, they are all processed but it appears these sugar substitutes are much less processed than old school zero calorie sweeteners like Equal. And I found the taste surprisingly wonderful! There is no way I would ever know this dessert used anything but traditional sugars. You can find out more about Swerve and Lakanto monk fruit in their respective links. Bottom line, they don't raise blood glucose levels so definitely help those who have to be mindful of that. But they are still processed and some may find they get a bit of digestive upset when consuming. I have personally experienced digestive issues when consuming xlitol but not at all with monkfruit or erythritol.