Artificial sweeteners are either the saving grace of America, or the devil. The first issue with artificial sweeteners came to light when cyclamates (the first marketed artificial sweeteners) were found to cause cancer in rats. So in 1969 cyclamates were taken off the market. Saccharin was the next agent, but many didn’t like its after taste. Then came aspartame (Equal). This had no bitter after taste and became the favorite until someone started a rumor that aspartame killed ants, and was originally developed as a rat poison – this is untrue on both counts.
First, aspartame was developed as an artificial sweetener and second, it does not kill ants (I tried it, as have a lot of others – sadly it doesn’t work). Splenda does contain calories (because of our FDA regulations it is allowed to be listed as “zero calories” but it is not). Splenda has 3.36 calories per packet (1 gram). It tastes like sugar and is generally easy to cook with – however; one package of Splenda is 600 times sweeter than an equal amount of sugar.
Two other sweeteners have joined the market in the United Sates. Stevia- is a product of several plants and was recently approved as a food additive in the United States, and Truvia (a proprietary blend of Stevia made by Coca-Cola and Cargill the Pepsi produce it PureVia). These are essentially all the same. There are some other sugar-alcohols like Xylitol that function as sweeteners.
The issue with artificial sweeteners has been getting use to the sweet taste, and thus an increase in appetite. In rats that are consuming artificial sweeteners there is an increase in their body weight over time as they increase the amount of food they consume. Not that we are rats – but avoiding the overly sweet taste is important. And there is no accident that while many of my weight loss patients consumes large quantities of “diet cola” – they still consume a lot of calories to go with them. It is also no accident that once our patients get off artificial sweeteners, they lose more weight.
People who drink sodas that have artificial sweeteners have a sixty percent increase in stroke and heart disease. Sixty percent!
How do you gain weight with artificial sweeteners? Since they are so sweet, you naturally want food to balance out the sweetness. Increasing the quantity of food allows you to increase the bitter, sour, and other sensations to balance the sweet taste. Remember, your palate always wants to return to a balance.
Overall –avoid the artificial sweeteners. Still- what is better than artificial sweeteners in soda? Simple water. It is free (unless you are in a city where the water tastes bad) and is regulated more tightly than most things
