sweetener

ilovelife

Wishing and hoping!
My OH is nagging me about sweetener (tabs and powder) that you should not use to much as it is bad for your body. What is people's view on this matter? Cause now I get dead stressed using sweetener - especially when drinking Pepsi Max :(
 
Personally, I am of the opinion that if we took notice of every single thing that was subject to scare stories, and health warnings, we would be living on water and not much else. As long as something that is obviously acceptable enough to be licensed for consumption by the public is taken in moderation, I wouldnt worry too much about it.
 
Personally, I am of the opinion that if we took notice of every single thing that was subject to scare stories, and health warnings, we would be living on water and not much else. As long as something that is obviously acceptable enough to be licensed for consumption by the public is taken in moderation, I wouldnt worry too much about it.

Fully agreed. Also most "science journalists" haven't even been near ANY science since they went to high school. This is a VERY interesting and highly recommended read http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/0007240198

So really, don't stress too much :)
 
I suppose there is for against everything.
What is classed as moderation then?
I have been told though that sweetener is a laxative, but I don't seem to have a problem in that area lol
 
It depends on how much you use in a day Hun. How many cups of tea/coffee etc you have. I have around 4 cups a day and have 2 sweetners in tea and 3 in decaff coffee. I have 2 cans of diet coke a day and then have 3 litres of water (on average) a day.
If I have a fruit salad made with frozen fruits, then I add sweetner to that and if I have weetabix in the morning for breakfast I will have sweetner there as well.
As I dont have weetabix everyday, or tea or coffee, I dont think that I eat it to excess.
 
Sweeteners are in A LOT of things, esp the things that are popular on "diets". Read your Mullerlights etc, they have sweeteners in. I'm afraid if you want to low calorie/weightloss option then it's sweeteners i'm afraid. Processed sugars are "bad" for you too. So unless you are consuming kg's of sweetener a day i'm pretty sure you'll be fine :)
 
I use splenda, can't stand the other sweetners, they all taste really artificial... ages ago they released a diet coke that was sweetened with splenda in the states but they never brought it over here. There is a brand of fizzy drinks there that uses splenda, my brother in law brought me some back when he went last year, they did n't have any artificial taste to them at all.

I don't worry about the amount of sweetner that I use, I only have it in tea and coffee and in icrecream if I make it or to dip my strawberries in, I think you would have to be having bucket loads of it to be a concern.
 
I used to worry about sweetener too, but too much of anything is bad for you!! :) so try not to worry about it too much xx
 
"I'm afraid if you want to low calorie/weightloss option then it's sweeteners i'm afraid."

If you want sweet stuff, maybe, but there's no need to use sweeteners at all if you don't want to - which I don't. They affect me too badly - headaches, visual disturbances, running to the loo. There's too much conflicting evidence out there about sweeteners as well, so I prefer to avoid them completely.

Just my opinion of course!!!
 
I'm not a big fan of sweeteners either. Sometimes they're unavoidable when I have things like diet yogurts but I try to avoid them as much as I can. I prefer using sugar and counting the syns.
 
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It worries me a bit too - don't think it can be great for you, but there again they don't really know for sure. I try to comfort myself by saying all of the antioxidants in the fruit and veg I've been eating are balancing out and fighting off any baddies in the sweeteners - bit of a cop out, but it helps me!
 
It worries me a bit too - don't think it can be great for you, but there again they don't really know for sure. I try to comfort myself by saying all of the antioxidants in the fruit and veg I've been eating are balancing out and fighting off any baddies in the sweeteners - bit of a cop out, but it helps me!

Like with sweeteners, there's no conclusive scientific evidence that antioxidants make the slightest bit of difference either.

So i wouldn't worry too much about either :)
 
The problem with sweetners that are commercially available is that they are not found anywhere in nature. Our bodies are not supposed to be consuming them. I'm managing slimming world just fine without using artificial sweetner. I tend to use organic fat free yogurts. They are usually 0.5-1 syn each.

And there is plenty of good scientific evidence that sweetner, in particuler aspartame, is incredibly bad for you, and I don't mean in the same way as sugar. More in the same way that nicotine is bad for you. Just because an agency rules that we can eat something doesn't mean it is safe, remember companies make huge amounts of money from these products. The sweetners we use had huge problems being certified for public consumption due to the safety concerns of scientists and they are banned today in some countries i.e. Japan.

Sorry to harp on, but this is a subject that is personal to me and that I have studied hard. A member of my family had bad multiple sclerosis symptoms and these disappeared within days of ceasing sweetner containing products. When she drank her first diet drink months later, the symptoms returned within 2 hours. She is now living free from sweetner and free from the MS.

Ultimately we must all make informed choices and decide for ourselves what we put in our bodies. But please don't make decisions about sweetner whilst believing there is no evidence that it is harmful. That is simply not true and I have a shelf of papers that say otherwise.

Right, will get off soap box now
 
I appreciate your input Jael, and of course, in some cases, people will be more intolerant to specific substances than others, and therefore encounter problems with them. That can be said of perfectly healthy natural substances too though, such as wheat, peanuts, or natural sugars. What we have to consider on a personal level is if the benefit outweighs the risk.

Take for example eggs. For years, health advisory people have advised against over consumption of eggs, believing them to be detrimental when overused. Now, the advice has completely changed. The egg hasnt changed, but the opinion has. Now it is being said that eggs are hugely beneficial and we should consume them freely.

Without symptoms to indicate that we personally have a problem with a particular substance, we need to understand that a vast quantity of the food that we consume contains artificially created substances and that in some cases we may experience problems with these substances. My daughter, in particular, reacts very strongly to items with artificial colours and flavours in, and so we tend to avoid those things as part of her diet, not least because the level of hysteria she can reach after ingesting such items can reach glass shattering levels.

But what doesnt work for one, will be perfectly fine for another, and taken in moderation, and given the purpose for which it is being consumed, which is to improve another area of health, namely to minimise calorific intake from sugars, and facilitate weightloss then the benefits DO most likely outweigh any risks.
 
I don't know if it's sweetener exactly, but you mentioned Pepsi Max and I have read that low calorie drinks are bad for you as they can cause damage to your bones if you consume too much.
Which scares me, I live off fanta zero at the moment!!
 
I now drink squash and water type things and have probably one little bottle, I don't buy litre bottles now and if I did then it would be a rare occassion.
 
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