I’ve been taking sugar substitutes (Splenda, etc.) for many years. The reason why I abandoned sugar for their sake is that they melt much faster in the cup. Now I’m starting to feel that it was kind of stupid to get so attached to these sugar substitutes. Does anybody know if they are bad for one’s health?
Sugar Substitutes
Clarissa's Blog 
The jury is still out on this one.. Both sugar and sugar substitutes are bad for you, but which one is worse is a difficult question. In an ideal world you would gradually cut back on sweet things – and your palette does really adjust over time and the less sweet things you eat, the more sensitive to sweet tastes you become. Now I can enjoy a coffee with a quarter of a packet of splenda whereas before I used much more than that!
But, a small amount of sweetener or sugar is nothing to worry about!
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I don’t really eat any sweet things. I don’t like candy, icecream, cookies, anything sweet, really. But I drink coffee and tea all the time. This is why I need this sweetener.
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Yes, although I do recommend demerara or turbinado sugar, they are tastier and a little spicy, and you can use less. But they melt the slowest.
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I fix the dissolving problem by making simple syrup (sugar + water + 5 +2 minute intervals in the microwave) and keeping it in my fridge. Then real sugar dissolves quickly.
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I use honey, honey. I try to avoid sugar, but not very much. I would never use a sweetener, because, you know, rat poison.
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Sugar substitutes are not good for one’s health, and, compared to sugar, I think sugar is better. F.e. Diet Coca Cola with sugar substitutes is worse than usual Cola with sugar.
Sugar may not be wonderful, but sugar substitutes may have worse side effects. F.e. I found an article in Hebrew and Google translated part of it:
Better the devil you know, imo. You wrote how healthy you eat natural not-canned foods, so I was surprised to see you using quantities of sugar substitutes with unknown side effects.
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Technically I believe Anonymous above is correct in that the jury is mostly still out. However, there have been a number of studies that show that artificial sweetness can have a range of effects which are counter productive to their purpose, including not triggering appetency control mechanisms the way real sugar does. Certainly my Dr when discussing weight was pretty firm about the idea that lower consumption of real sugar was the way to go. If you want I’ll see if I can find some links to the research.
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As far as I know, it depends which sweetener you use. The worse are those that have aspartame (also unfortunately the most common ones, e.g. you’d find this in diet drinks as well as in low-fat youghurts. etc. – read the label, I think Splenda unfortunately falls among these), so I try to avoid these. The ones based on sucralose are supposedly less problematic (again, read the label – on my side of Atlantic and in my country such ones is called either Hermesetas or Natreen).
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And it is obviously too early for me to write proper grammar (desperately need a coffee with one of those sweeteners)… It should be “The worst are those…” and “such ones are called”
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Your body does not see the difference between sugar and sweetener; it treats both of them as sugar. Also, both sugar and sweetener make you crave for more sugar.
I have a very sweet tooth (I know diabetes will kill me), but I always try to eat non-refined sugars (maple syrup, honey, turbinado even).
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I think it depends somewhat on how much of the stuff you consume. I seem to recall that there were studies done on rats, and they had a very high incidence of cancer and other terrible diseases if they ate these artificial sweetners instead of sugar. But then again, I think these rats were eating huge amounts of the stuff (like the human equivalent of a cup or two a day), and there is always the question on how well model animals translate to human systems… so I think as long as you aren’t consuming more than a half cup a day of the artificial sweetner, you’re probably safe.
Though I don’t know how you can stand the stuff. It does make things sweeter, but it also makes things taste like weird chemicals in my experience. Like I’m licking styrofoam or something. Gross.
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One thing that I think is not often taken into account when these artificial sweeteners hit the market is long term use. Sure they might be tested in a lab for 5 years but how can 5 years of testing compare to 10 years of actual use?
(And I’d wager that that “testing” is probably done in some sort of ideal condition like the subject using a relatively small amount per day or something.)
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Why 10 years? In theory side effects may become visible from next day to 25 years after. I talk not of sweeteners, but in general. F.e. effects of dangerous chemicals that lead to cancer in young (old) age, or medicine, or Pills.
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I said 10 years as just an example of how testing phases can’t account for extremely long term use. You are correct that the presentation of side effects can happen at different times.
I agree with what you say here I was just specifically talking about the higher end of the scale (like the 25 years later you mention).
As in there is no other way to really know the answer to, “How will this affect the human body after 10 years of use?” other than having someone use it for 10 years and by then the damage is done.
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My comments:
Coffee tastes better unsweetened.
Splenda is sucralose.
Sucralose is a chemical relative of DDT, so I am not inclined not to use it, quite aside from the fact that it is far too sweet for my taste anyway.
Artificial sweeteners, IIRC, tend to promote an inappropriate insulin response, and so decrease insulin sensitivity. This can lead to type II diabetes.
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‘Artificial sweeteners, IIRC, tend to promote an inappropriate insulin response, and so decrease insulin sensitivity. This can lead to type II diabetes.’
That is a bold claim, David. Do you know of any medical study showing this?
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I have read it so often in the alternative health press that I thought it was common knowledge. It certainly makes sense. If I find a specific reference, I will post it.
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One study did show an insulin response to artificial sweetener and that study has been quoted A LOT, but that study has not been able to be replicated, so is probably garbage. Take every claim you hear with a grain of salt, people!
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That’s why it is so hard to figure these things out!
Like corn syrup. Is it as horrible as people say it is? Is it responsible for so much food being poisonous?
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Why is it so very important that they dissolve super quickly? I have never considered the dissolving time of sugar to be a problem, and I would never use those ill tasting substitutes to avoid it, or go to the trouble Shedding does to solve it … am I in the dark ages or something, putting up with an inconvenience that modern people do not tolerate … ??? 🙂
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BTW, maple syrup dissolves faster than anything else. And tastes better, if one wants sweetness.
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Yes, but where does one get REAL maple syrup in the Midwest? All I find at the supermarket doesn’t even deserve the name of maple syrup.
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Maple syrup causes a huge insulin response no different from using table sugar..
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Ay no, that stuff is cloyingly sweet and has a very strong taste. Although one could get yet more extreme and go for the blackstrap molasses… 😉
I still want to know, why is this fast melting issue so very important?
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I know, it’s stupid to care how fast it melts. I have these weird quirks that I can’t even explain sometimes.
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But there are several commenters who have solutions and suggestions on it, from which I deduce that the interest in fast melting is not only yours. 😉
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As my psychoanalyst says, the blog helps me discover that I’m completely normal and that people actually don’t think I’m a total freak. I think he’s right. 🙂
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I’m hearing a lot of information that is not correct, and frankly, a lot of talk that strikes me as naturalistic fallacy – which unfortunately many progressives are horrifyingly guilty of.
First of, there is no reason to assume off the bat that artificial sweeteners are worse than table sugar or bad for you at all, simply because they are artificial, or that honey is better than table sugar because it is more ‘natural’. There is no reason to abstain from artificial sweeteners because they are similar in structure to DTD either. Very small changes in molecules make ENORMOUS differences in how they behave in our bodies.
The best science available today tells us that foods that cause high insulin spikes are bad for you, cause weight gain, and make you hungry. Coupled with the fact that drinking calories is worse than eating them for a variety of reasons, it is good to cut back or eliminate sugar consumption, especially in beverages.
Sorry to tell many of you here, but honey and maple syrup are not much, if at all, better than table sugar. Yes, honey causes a slightly lower insulin response than table sugar – but not by much, meaning is still causes a very high insulin response. The difference between brown rice and white rice is nowhere near analogous to the difference between honey and table sugar. Eating a teaspoon or honey is still a very refined source, even if the refining was done by bees.
Now, as someone mentioned we do not have evidence of the effects of using sweeteners after 50 years. Well, if after 20 years, no real health detriments have been recorded, then there probably wont be major horrible health implications springing out of nowhere after 50 years. The risk will stay about the same.
We however do have the consequences of eating a high sugar diet for over 50 years and the answer is obesity, diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure, and premature death.
Gaining weight throughout life and suffering health consequences because of it is a much, much, more likely occurrence than suffering from a rare cancer possibly that was in part exacerbated or caused by the use of artificial sweeteners (which have only been shown to definitively cause health problems in HUGE doses).
If you read something in a health magazine or on a website, please please please take it with a huge grain of salt. Even things endorsed in magazines (and even by doctors) for years have been proven to be the result of bad studies or the result of one overhyped study which could never be replicated. For example, the jury is still very much out on whether salt consumption causes hypertension (there is very little evidence to indicate it does).
I would recommend that all of you search google scholar articles if you are curious about a health question. If you have access to academic science journals, even better! The advice you hear is oftentimes heavily motivated by monetary interests and can’t be backed up with science. Another example – eating multiple meals a day has NOT EVER been scientifically proven to cause a higher metabolic rate than eating 2 or 3 large meals but you hear that advice peddled everywhere!
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This is a very helpful comment! Thank you! I also have a feeling that many things we keep hearing are just silly hype.
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