I have really tried to cut the amount of artificial sweeteners. And to be honest I didn’t think or worry about it until a friend who was pregnant told me I had to cut it out before becoming pregnant. I am not planning on getting pregnant for a few years but I want my body to be healthy when I do.

the sugar vs. artificial sweetener is enough to drive anyone mad! some say it good some say its bad.. who really knows?! so to practice moderation i always switch back and forth between a packet of good ol’ fashion sugar and a stevia packet. Works for me!

I don’t use artificial sweeteners to sweeten coffee because I don’t drink it, but they are in some of the foods I buy. I try to be very careful about how much I consume. There’s so much conflicting information out there that it’s hard to know what to do sometimes!

I love the title of this post; I now have the song in my head.

I’ve tried Stevia and didn’t care for it. To me, it had a weird bitter taste. I’d rather just have regular sugar in moderation. Luckily I don’t use it in coffee or tea, and usually eat already-sweetened oatmeal or cereal.

I use Splenda. I have trouble with the natural stuff like Stevia.. gets my stomach bloated. I also use organic brown sugar & honey. Splenda has never made me want to eat more either like the studies say…

No vegan here…. but I do tale calcium/magnesium supplements cause I can’t handle dairy although I do Greek yogurt!

makes my head spin, yep – sure does! I am pretty sure at some point in my life, I will and may continue to do something that is harmful to my body. Pumpin gas while on the cell phone, check. Plastic in the microwave, check. Splenda consumption, check. I do it. For every right do it there is a don’t do it. And while we should all make sure we know both sides before doing something, sometimes it ends up just picking the lesser of two evils. On that note, gotta go get me my big ol’ mug of coffee w/ splenda!

I’m trying to cut out all refined sugar at this point, but I *LOVE* my Sobe lifewater acai fruit punch, which has the “new” sweetener Pure Via (which I think is another name for Truvia, but not sure). I have one a day, at breakfast and then I savor it during my ride to work.

There is always going to be research that says something is good or bad for you – I think it’s up to the consumer to make the final decision, and to know that too much of ANYTHING is going to be bad for you! (See Atkins Diet, Pure Vegetable Diet, Grapefruit Diet, etc.)

I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Really, artificial sweetener is one of the things I don’t allow into my body under any circumstances – it’s not up to us to prove that they are unsafe, it’s up to the manufacturers to prove that they ARE safe, which they can’t do. There have been plenty of studies saying that they aren’t, but nothing beats personal experience and I have seen for myself how people’s health improved when they came of sweeteners – and they hadn’t even realized that they were not well before!

I decided one day to stop using sugar and I started drinking my coffee bitter. These days I rarely drink coffee, so it’s a moot point. When I do need to sweeten something, I use raw honey, freshly extracted juice, pureed fruit, ground dates or preservative-free dried fruit.

I don’t take calcium supplements. They are of no value. In fact, I believe they do more harm than good. Avoiding sweeteners and coffee would be more helpful to your bones than taking calcium supplements (or dairy products, for that matter).

Quote: Just because a synthesized molecule is similar to a natural sugar molecule doesn’t make it safe. Just a one- or two-atom change makes a big difference when ingesting water versus hydrogen peroxide, beer versus wood alcohol, or carbon dioxide versus carbon monoxide.

Ummmm…. As somebody who has studied biochemistry extensively, I can assure you that this analogy is not as simple as you make it seem. You don’t just add an atom to an organic (carbon based) molecule — you add functional groups. Getting that extra H on a water molecule to form hydrogen peroxide is no simple task — the extra hydrogen doesn’t want to be there, which is why it is so reactive. Likewise, withCO2 (carbon dioxide) and CO (carbon monoxide) — one is formed during the respiration process in our bodies (the process of converting glucose into an energy form usable by our bodies) and the other from combustion process.

Again, same argument with alcohol. What most people don’t know is that alcohol in any form is poisonous to our bodies, even ethanol (the kind you drink). The toxicity problem is why we have a liver. Not just for alcohol, but for everything we ingest. Just grilling a chicken patty puts more toxins into what you eat than a few packets of artificial sweetner. Moderation is the correct answer — our body is designed to deal with a moderate concentration of toxins without a problem. So use the sucrolose in moderation and don’t worry — your body can deal with it.

As for the artificial sugars, I don’t use any of them. I don’t like the way they taste. I have come to appreciate the flavors of foods in their natural state — if they don’t taste good to me, I don’t eat them.

I tend to avoid them because I can always taste them and even a moderate amount seems to upset my stomach. I have had my coffee black with no sweeteners for 25 years now, lol!

You can gradually wean yourself off sugar/subs in coffee by very gradually reducing the amount you put in every cup/mug.

I hope your mind isn’t too boggled now with all that research!

Moderation says it all. It’s not good to eat tons of sugar because you’re afraid of other sweeteners. It’s also not good to eat tons of sweeteners because you’re afraid of sugar. The problem with stuff these days is almost always quantity. We (Americans especially) just don’t know how to stop.

Well it’s a big “No, thank you!” on those Splenda cons! It tastes nasty to me anyways. I only eat real sugar, and yes, moderation is key. Thanks for breaking this down!

I use any artificial sweetner in moderation. That being said… i do try to avoid it. i always have and recently I decided to do some research to cut it out of my diet altogether and oh my. I’d have to be brining home more money than i do now, because I just can’t afford to cut it out. It’s in EVERYTHING!!! from vitamins to my favorite high fiber cereal to medicine. And some things… i just can’t afford on a stay at home mom salary. So, instead I’ve been choosing where I get it from. i’m very diligent at reading the lables and making the choice BEFORE I buy it. Do i want it from this source. It helps to eat like the Dr told me to, if it’s not in it’s most natural form possible from nature… Don’t eat it.

Frankly my take on the sugar vs artificial has ALWAYS been simple… if I’m gonna die from what i eat, good lord let it be natural because we all know Mary Poppins said it best: A spoon of sugar makes the medicine go down… all the better. A spoonful of artificial sugar in my mouth is just nasty. It’s a choice everyone should make on their own, but inform yourself so you know what you are deciding on.

I’m for moderation.

I know there is a lot of hype about the dangers of artificial sweeteners but I believe there are usually nuggets (maybe itty bitty) of truth mixed in with the wild accusations.

I prefer Splenda over the rest as it has less of an aftertaste to me.

That said, I do notice as I use it less frequently, that the aftertaste is becoming more pronounced. Similar to when you cut back on salt & rediscover the natural saltiness of certain foods.

I use it to sweeten iced tea, but that is a once in a while thing we drink.

Hmm, I think the main source of artificial sweeters for me would be some processed foods (sf/ff pudding for one), but once again, these are a few times a week versus a few times a day so I tend to shrug it off.

For my beloved coffee I still use my chemical laden Coffee Mate, but I only use 1 Tbs & then add a little fat free half & half to make it luxuriously creamy when I want a cup in the evening. Mornings I just add a Tbs of vanilla Coffee Mate – regular, not the sugar free – and greedily drink it down before the children realize I am not doing something ‘them’ related.

Went through this same debate/struggle this year and finally decided on very small amounts of sugar rather than fake stuff. By the way, I live in the same town as the splenda factory and my husband happens to be an industrial electrician who has worked with many men who have worked in the splenda factory. They (the electricians from the splenda factory) would not dare eat splenda and to quote, “some areas of the plant were off limits to humans because of the toxicity of the process/ingredients.” That was enough for me. My motto- “as close to the way God made it as possible.” Non-sweetened food, like oatmeal and coffee for instance, is an acquired taste. I would recommend decreasing fake sweetener slowly and then substituting with honey or agave or fruit.

I have one decaf in the morning with one splenda and some powdered nofat cream. The rest of the day, I might have half a diet soda or a little crystal light, but I try to stay away from the stuff as much as possible. Most of the time it’s water for me. But given the choice between something with calories and something without, I will always choose the something without.

I used to put splenda in everything – really it sounded like a dieter’s dream! But recently I started concentrating on the quality of ingredients/food I’m consuming and so Splenda got the boot. I don’t like stevia either (never even tried it!) because I feel like it’s the new and improved splenda of sorts… every time there is a new product, that seems better than the old one and after a few years it gets bad rap and there is a new better and improved savior. No thanks!

Awesome post, Annabel!
I agree with you – it is all about moderation. Too much of anything is not a good thing.
I use Splenda in my coffee, 2 packets a day.
I do want to use less aspartame, which means getting off of Crystal Light. I’m not a big fan of plain water, but I definitely feel the aspartame when I drink too much.
*Sigh*