Splenda, Aspartame, Sugar Twin and other sweetners

[cryingdestiny]

Can you gain weight from using these in herbal teas if they say CALORIE FREE and the total calories equals 0

[emunah]

They aren't REALLY calorie free so be careful how much they use.

some people find they trigger binging.

[Amris]

Get some stevia, buy unsweetened tea, and sweeten it with a few DROPS of Stevia.

It is the SINGLE SAFEST way to sweeten things. It won't mess with your blood sugar. It doesn't go directly to your blood, it travels through the digestive system and gets broken down over time. It is EXTREMELY sweet so only a few drops will do more than other sweetners.


Those sweeteners that you mentioned have a hidden problem that is a health risk most people ignore. They will give you a rush of blood sugar, followed by a rush of insulin.

This gives you energy.... then you fall down into a "energy valley" and you need more sugar, or caffiene. Then you do the same thing again. Your blood sugar should be kept as close to "middle of the line" as you can, to prevent insulin flooding.

Diabetes is a growing epidemic in our country for a reason. And it's NOT because our sweeteners are safe!

[ElMariachi]

I stay away from artificial sweeteners for a reason, they are artificial. None of them has any benefit for you and quite a few are known to be addictive, which is why people get hooked on diet soda so easily. Its all chemical crap that doesn't belong in your bloodstream to begin with. Its hard to avoid nowadays, but I take in as absolutely little as possible, I think the only thing that has them is my protein shake, but even then I stick mostly to Stevia, sometimes sucralose and NEVER aspartame(nutrasweet) which is the worst one out there.

[cryingdestiny]

Because I use sugartwin(calorie free sweetner) like 10 million times a day for my calorie free teas and they dont make me hungry ... they actually suppress my appetite!

[Mr. Aries]

stevia

[Amris]

Because I use sugartwin(calorie free sweetner) like 10 million times a day for my calorie free teas and they dont make me hungry ... they actually suppress my appetite!

Well stop that!

Water is a natural appetite suppressant. No, I'm not kidding. Pure, sparkly, pretty water. All by itself.

Sugartwin & the other chemical sweeteners are like the grand canyon in health risks compared to the little crack in the sidewalk that is Stevia. Which would you rather stumble into?

If you REALLY need sweet, use Stevia. There's a reason why there are so many warnings against these sweeteners. The FDA has demanded a label on them, DESPITE the fact that they are "just food." You may not understand the significance of that, but it's MAJOR. The FDA doesn't regulate food in any way except to make sure it's pure/etc. They typically don't regulate the contents of it outside of making sure it's not dog meat when you bought beef, and it hasn't got rat pellets or gut pieces in it. Whether or not it's actually healthy... they don't give a rat pellet.

YET, they demand a warning label on those sweeteners. That should give you pause. Basically what that means is that some moral person in the FDA took a stand and made sure that people are warned. But the lobbiests got it through anyhow... someone did their best for you in the face of massive political pressure. Please, for the love of god, listen to them!

These things are bad for your health. It's right there on most of the labels. The FDA is not playing around with this.

[RunninnRunnin]

Amris- Nicely Said....

Aspertaine...?!?! YUCK YUCK YUCK and YUCK!! Research it and read some stuff about it and you well gag at the sound of anything with aspertaine in it... I would stick to stevia! But be careful if you put to much stevia in something it's sick! I learned that by experiance! I made a berry smoothie and put a teaspoon of stevia in it and haha it was SICK! But try to stay away from any artificial sweeteners and stick to stevia! Good Luck! Hope I helped!

[cryingdestiny]

Hey thanks for the responses and i dont use aspartame just sugartwin and splenda is in my flavored water. i tried drinking normal water and i cant drink it all the time, only when i mreally thirsty

[florida girl]

Stevia is the ONLY sweetener that you should be using. You need to read a book titled "Sweet Poison" by Janet Starr Hull. It will tell you everything you need to know about artificial sweeteners. You will never touch them again.

[florida girl]

One other thing. Do a "google" search on Splenda. I think you will be shocked to find out that it is not all its cracked up to be either. Stay away from it.

[terracotta]

ho-hum... OK

first of all, don't believe anything you read from some random site you find in a google search - there is a lot of quack science on the net

secondly, there is a sugar lobby (just as there is an egg lobby, a pork lobby, a chicken lobby etc) who try to put a bad wrap on sweeteners

If you want a very thorough discussion on sweeteners, there is one in the main forums, it is located here:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=291569

[terracotta]

another thing, there was a really good article like a month or two ago in Vanity Fair about sweeteners. It was quite well written, and explained the history of sweeteners and FDA decisions on them. I'll see if I can locate it on the net, if I can't, you might want to check it out in the library or something.

[terracotta]

cryingdestiny - any product with less than 5 calories per serving is allowed to be labelled calorie free. If you look at a box of sugar twin, it actually says on the side that there are 2 calories per packet or about 240 calories for a 200 packet box. Anyways, unless you are eating more than 20/day (which I would not recommend in the first place, and I don't imagine you would be), there is no calorie issue to worry about.

[ElMariachi]

"there is a sugar lobby"


Yea but Nutrasweet and all these other companies NEVER lobby for anything, I mean god forbid they would try to protect their billion dollar + industry through deceit and corruption, that could NEVER happen.

I mean, when Aspartame was approved, the director of the FDA, the individual who was most responsible for pushing Aspartame onto the market through coincidence just HAPPENED to take a top position at the company who was producing Aspartame, a very very well-paid and well-compensated position, but I'm sure that had absolutely nothing to do with it at all, in spite of the questionable responses Aspartame got from FDA scientists, it was still approved, but no, the artificial sugar people are just saints.


I mean, there is absolutely nothing wrong with putting all sorts of awkward chemicals that have no place in the human body inside you.

All the people who have experienced negative side effects and had serious health issues thanks to certains artificial sweeteners, thats just all a sugar lobby conspiracy, a product of warped imagination, surely no company would be so dishonest as to COVER UP the negative aspects of their products in order to make a larger profit, that would just be beyond belief, I mean thank goodness we have responsible folks like Big Tobacco looking out for OUR interests.


It would really suck if they and the artificial sweetener people weren't entirely forthcoming about the negative effects of their products.


Keep in mind that big Tobacco produced ALL kinds of scientists and scientific "research" that showed that cigarettes were completely unrelated to cases of emphysema and lung cancer, that was just simply a bunch of hypochondriacs looking for attention, of course after this went on for decades, eventually the gig was up and they had to take the blame. Someday these artificial sweetener companies will face the firing squad in the same manner.

[Angela R]

Hi. There has already been some great info in this thread, but I thought I'd throw my two cents in as well. I found this article doing some research on my own when I was cutting. I thought wow, splenda is so great wonder if they make soda with splenda. I stumble upon this article and needless to say I am artificial sweetner free now. I find that herbal tea such as lemon or peach taste just fine without adding anything to it.

http://www.womentowomen.com/nutritio...ss/splenda.asp

[terracotta]

well, you all can do what you want about the sweeteners, but I would like to post some links about the sugar lobby to inform people:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...940287,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr15.html
http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine....eatures06.html

FDA labels stevia as an unsafe food additive!
http://www.stevia.net/fda.htm
http://www.holisticmed.com/sweet/stv-faq.txt
http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/SweetTalkingFDA.htm

[ElMariachi]

"FDA labels stevia as an unsafe food additive!"


Yea, the producers of Stevia in the US don't bribe as well as the folks at Nutrasweet. Stevia is legal in a whole lot more countries around the world, has been in use for years, has been declared safe and has been widely used and promoted over Aspartame which is banned in several nations.

[terracotta]

"FDA labels stevia as an unsafe food additive!"


Yea, the producers of Stevia in the US don't bribe as well as the folks at Nutrasweet. Stevia is legal in a whole lot more countries around the world, has been in use for years, has been declared safe and has been widely used and promoted over Aspartame which is banned in several nations.

I know!

Just a warning not to trust the FDA to make sensible decisions.

[ElMariachi]

"

Just a warning not to trust the FDA to make sensible decisions."


The last time that was true was maybe back in the 70s, ever since then, the FDA has been a free agent, offering their services to the highest bidder. Its an agency in desperate need of an overhaul, typical bureaucracy, corrupt, once the drug companies got in there, that was the end of what was once an awkward, slow but reputable agency, now its just garbage.

The FDA endorsing something to me means about as much as a crackhead on the street corner doing the same.

[Amris]

"

Just a warning not to trust the FDA to make sensible decisions."


The last time that was true was maybe back in the 70s, ever since then, the FDA has been a free agent, offering their services to the highest bidder. Its an agency in desperate need of an overhaul, typical bureaucracy, corrupt, once the drug companies got in there, that was the end of what was once an awkward, slow but reputable agency, now its just garbage.

The FDA endorsing something to me means about as much as a crackhead on the street corner doing the same.

I think she's trying to say that you can't trust the fact that the FDA demands warning labels on Aspartame, in refute to my statement that it means something.

Which I agree that the FDA is corrupt, but the fact that they are doesn't suddenly make Aspartame safe. The fact that DESPITE the millions that went into their pocket to pass Aspartame, they labeled it, does mean something.

It's not as reliable as we'd wish, because if there were no other evidence, we could then all agree (like in the case of Stevia) that the FDA has their heads up their asses and are lying to us flat out.

But there is evidence that Aspartame is unhealthy. Despite FDA's passing of it, everyone knows that there is doubt about its safety. The same with processed sugar- everyone knows it's unhealthy in large amounts, and more and more people are beginning to avoid it altogether.

I don't think that the FDA as a whole has our best interests at heart. But I also don't think that 100% of it is corrupt. And I think that somewhere along the line, someone who DOES have our best interests at heart in that organization, did their best to help us by putting their foot down in the face of millions of dollars of kickbacks, and said "warning label, period."



But no, don't trust the FDA with blind faith. I don't believe I ever indicated that you should. But when the preponderance of evidence suggests that there IS something to an FDA mandated warning label, maybe you should listen instead of simply dismissing it because you "considered the source."

[terracotta]

Actually, I wasn't refering to aspartame in general.. I was just referring to how the FDA generally handles things. In fact, not even just with sweeteners, with drugs too. It seems like instead of banning things, or asking for another study to be done, they just put a warning label on everything.

In Canada, Australia, and MANY other countries, sodium cyclamate is not banned. It is banned in the U.S. simply because a study which combined sodium cyclamate with saccharin caused cancer in rats. Instead of waiting for a study with sodium cyclamate all by itself, they immediately banned the chemical.

But then they allow aspartame of course, because of the money funnel.

I don't buy splenda because it is too darn expensive. I don't buy aspartame because I hate the taste. I buy a sodium cyclamate sweetener - which is the most popular sweetener in canada btw - because it tastes reasonable, is relatively cheap, and a way to replace sugar.

[OhLea]

most probably wont agree with me in saying that I dont worry about sweeteners being dangerous. I eat A LOT of splenda, and I am trying to cut down - only cut down, not cut out - bc its just not necessary. I think there are worse things in life to ingest and practically everything has become 'dangerous' these days.

[terracotta]

how much does splenda cost in the U.S.? Here it is 7$ for 200 packets of 2 tsp equiv. - whereas sugar twin is 2$.

And I don't worry about sweeteners either. I was really worried about the amount of sugar I was consuming. I consider diabetes to be a real threat.

[barnetjs]

Splenda has 2 calories per packet and 94 or 96 calories per cup.

Not sure of the cost for the packets - but the bag of splenda is like $6.50 or $7 US.

I to am not that worried about sweatners - I am sure it along with everything else will get us all eventually

[terracotta]

yeah, I think a bag of splenda is about 13$ here. I'll try sucralose if the company ever loses is patent, after which the price would go down. I buy splenda sweetened whey that I really like.

[barnetjs]

I buy splenda sweetned all kinds of things - I am pretty sure that the form the food mfg buys does not have any calories - what give it the calories is what they put in it to make it "stay"

[terracotta]

most sweeteners are bulked with dextrose, which is what gives them the calories.

[1quick1]

I just picked up a bag of splenda. From what I'm reading it doesn't seem to good for you but am I wrong in thinking a teaspoon or two in the morning with my oatmeal can't be that bad? It'll be the only time I use it and it's pre-workout. My breakfast is usually 4 egg whites, 2 whole eggs, and 1/2 cup of oatmeal 44g protein, 35g carbs, 14g fat at about 420 calories.