What are your opinions on artificial sweeteners?
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Anonymous
| I’ve cut way back on sweetener of any kind, but agree with PP that it’s a long process to retrain your taste buds. I’d cut back on added sugars over the years and switched to maple syrup and honey in baking, but still found myself craving sweets. I went completely cold turkey - zero sugar/sweetener of any kind except a little monk fruit in my coffee- and while it was VERY hard the first few weeks, it was the key to getting my health back. I lost the 15 lbs I’d been hanging onto for years faster than I’d ever lost weight, and without changing my workout routine. For me cravings happened mostly at night- it forced me to go to bed earlier. After a few weeks the cravings stopped altogether. |
Anonymous
| Aspartame can lead to cancer. |
Anonymous
According to a more reputable source then you, no link between aspartame and cancer has been found. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/aspartame.html |
Anonymous
| Not good overall, but that doesn't stop me from having a Coke Zero on occasion. |
Anonymous
Sorry, should have circled that square. Stevia is pretty processed, so though it comes from a leaf, so does sugar, so does HFCS. HFCS is processed to the point that it’s not natural despite coming from a plant and it could be argued that stevia is in the same league. Plus, for those of us not hailing from South America, it’s definitely a novel compound. I avoid fake sugars as much as possible. Aspartame used to give me horrific headaches and they all - stevia, aspartame, Splenda, monkfruit - have a weird slippery-greasy-astringent feeling on the tongue. |
Anonymous
Who cares, it still tastes revolting. |
Anonymous
| Op here—thanks for all your input! |
Anonymous
| Bad for you. Don't help you lose weight AND gross. |
Anonymous
Same here. |
Anonymous
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Compared to what? Compared to water, diet soda is worse. Compared to regular soda or a milkshake, better.
From Post nutritionist columnist Tamar Haspel: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-case-for-diet-soda-it-gets-a-bad-rap-but-the-research-tells-a-different-story/2019/06/21/70ad3f54-92da-11e9-b570-6416efdc0803_story.html "..if there’s some evidence that they can help at least a little with weight loss, and evidence for harm is practically nonexistent, why oppose them? “Because they’re only in crap.” In a nutshell, this explains the hostility. Low-calorie sweeteners represent just about everything that’s wrong with our diet. They’re mostly synthetic. They play to the human preference for sweetness, which manufacturers leverage to sell us more, and then more again. A good chunk of the research is industry-sponsored. And they’re mostly in highly processed foods — or, as Gardner puts it, “crap.” We’re supposed to eat food, not too much, mostly plants. We’re supposed to turn it into home-cooked meals, with which we drink water. I’m on board! I’m squarely in the processed-food-causes-obesity camp. But given how far Americans are from these goals, should we let perfect be the enemy of perfectly okay? People don’t want to drink water. They want to drink soda. But the attitude in the nutrition community isn’t just that you shouldn’t drink soda — regular or diet — it’s that you shouldn’t even want to drink soda. It’s puritanical, holier-than-thou and breathtakingly condescending. |
Anonymous
What? Where does it go when it is "absorbed in your intestines," and how does it get to the urinary tract from there, if not transported via the bloodstream? Is it directly beamed there? Takes a taxi? |
Anonymous
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Erythritol - all I can say is do your own research. I read, I reviewed, I googled and read about side effects, blood sugar effects, insulin effects, is it good, is it bad, is it a hoax, is it natural, who’s profiting, reviews of people who have used it, people who like it, people who had gastric issues, people who were meh. Decided it was worth trying.
How it works going into and absorbed thru intestines - I dunno. But that’s what everything I found consistently said. It’s approved for diabetics. Some keto people use it as it supposedly doesn’t cause blood or insulin spikes. Again, is it good or bad? so far no reports of people growing an extra thumb. I use it because it has no weird taste or after taste, no calories, is the only ingredient, doesn’t seem to give me a sugar high and then drop, and no ill or side effects. Was just giving people a possible alternative to look into. Shrug. They can look into it or use or not. Just passing on what has been working for me. Going to now research difference between being beamed vs taxi. And if either care absorbed in my intestines. |
Anonymous
| If your sources are saying it works because it doesn't get into the bloodstream, those are not reliable sources in any way. |
Anonymous
Funny I always noticed aspartame gave me headaches but I thought I was a crank 
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Anonymous
| Artificial sweeteners do give migraines, my neurologist told me so. He was not sure about monk fruit but noticed that his wife uses it too. |