I came across this article on the Wellness site: http://blog.wellnesstips.ca/blog/?p=117
I have to admit that I’m guilty of strictly using artificial sweeteners as a replacement to sugar and generally feel that I’m doing the right thing in terms of my diet. There has always been much debate about whether or not artificial sweeteners are good for you or in fact hazardous to your health but there’s never really been any concrete evidence proving them a danger and they still continue to be in high usage for many people.
This article lists some other alternatives to sugar and artificial sweeteners and really gets you thinking about the dangers of using artifical sweeteners.
I also recommend looking around the rest of this site for great wellness tips – enjoy!
More synthetic chemicals that the body doesn’t know how to deal with. This has been a soapbox of mine since the 80s (yes, I’m showing my age). Apart from other potential problems that I’d found through my own reading back then, a friend at the time – who worked for a large weight-loss company – told me that aspartame caused the body to retain fluid; not a side-effect you woulld want if you are trying to lose, or maintain, weight, surely.
There are many schools of thought, even for natural sweeteners. One of the latest is that anything that contains fructose (fruit sugar) is worse for you than glucose (the simplest sugar molecule) when it comes to fat storage and insulin resistance. One of my favourites, agave nectar, is apparently one of the worst. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I have seen many food fads come and go.
For a little sweetness in your life, I don’t think you can go past stevia – a south American herb that is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, by wieght. Apart from the fact that it is a single sourced food (bing a herb), it appears to have the added benefit of decreasing insulin resistance; which has the potential to affectively reverse early diabetes (or pre-diabetes), along side other lifestyle improvements. Effectively, as it is such a sweet herb – and you need such a tiny amount at a time – it contains negligible calories. Yay!
It comes in many forms: as fresh or dried herb (grow one for your self), as a tincture (extract), as tiny tablets, mixed with xylitol (for use in a spoon for spoon ratio), or in “smart sugar” (a CSR product, where the sugar is milled with stevia, to super sweeten it). At one time of another, I’ve used them all. The label on smart sugar suggests that you should substitute 1/2 cup, for 1 cup of regular sugar – my experience is that is still way too sweet, try 1/3 to start with.
With xylitol, for me the jury is still out. My dental hygenist tells me that it is a 5-carbon sugar, instead of a regular 6-carbon chain, which is why she recommends chewing gum made from this. Apparently, bacteria recognise it as a sugar and feed on if, but as it is not a food source they can use, they reject it and die. I have two problems with this: this will “kill” good bacteria, not just the harmful ones, and wouldn’t our bodies react in a similar way? One reported side-effect of xylitol that people have reported is gut disturbance. If it’s killing bacteria in your mouth, then it potentially could kill bacteria in your gut too – which are key to digestion. Not that I don’t use it, though I do choose the least “tampered with”, Natvia, as it only has xylitol – not a whole bunch of other stuff that you’d need a degree in chemistry to understand.
It is because of stevia that I no longer need to use any sweetener in my occasional coffee (I’ve never used it in tea). At the time, I was using 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar (for years, I had not been able to get it lower), so I started using either half a tablet or 1 drop of tincture (2 drops = 1 teaspoon of sugar). Then one day when I didn’t have any with me, I stopped for coffee with a friend and used no sweetener at all. I didn’t miss it! After about three months of exclusively using the stevia substitute, I had managed to kick that last 1/2 teaspoon in my coffee addiction. Now for the rest of the sugar addiction. Getting better, all the time.
Good luck with your sugar addiction, no matter how bad it is. But whatever you do, don’t deny yourself a little of what you love, because denial is not nurturing. Do I need to say it? MODERATION!
Blessings, Donna-Lee