Artificial Sweeteners - Not So Sweet

Artificial sweeteners are like "candy" for grown-ups, only it won't rot your teeth, it will rot so very much more!

I've been proclaiming the woes of aspartame for years now, and basically as with everything, people believe what they want to.  I don't know that I've convinced anyone that it's bad for them, but my job is to simply share the information.  What anyone does with it, is their choice.  I know, I made the right choice for my health when I quit using it.

I was so far removed from the use of artificial sweeteners when splenda made it's debut, I never even tried it, at least intentionally, so I have included a link addressing splenda.

To replace sugar in our diet with chemicals does not enhance our health and truly doesn't make sense on a long term basis.  First and foremost, our bodies are not designed to digest these strange chemical concoctions.  Second, since our bodies do not process them, they either are stored in our fat cells, which directly opposes the reason for using artificial sweeteners.  Reducing calories while expanding fat cells is counterproductive to weight loss, but can be actually hazardous to one's health.  Third, they can be very damaging to the liver and kidneys as the body attempts to rid itself of these foreign substances.

Aspartame has the same basic properties as anti-freeze, although; the information continues to be downplayed.  The original plan for aspartame was a medication for ulcers, when it was discovered to be very sweet.  Artificial sweeteners are much easier to sell than pharmaceuticals.  There is a much larger market.  Aspartame has now been renamed to sound more natural.

Splenda, on the other hand was the result of an experiment to make an insecticide.  Sucralose is several 100 times sweeter than sugar, and much easier to sell than insecticides.  Not to mention, once again, the amazingly more vast market looking to cut a few calories over those looking to kill bugs.  The best way to market a questionable product is to give it a splendid name and present it with splendor . . .

The only truly healthy way to reduce sugar in our diet is to reduce sugar in our diet.  Artificial sweeteners seem to actually stimulate the desire for more sweetness, so the intake is actually increased.  I won't actually use the term, addictive, but some folks have described the increased desire for diet beverages and even the urge to add artificial sweeteners to things they hadn't previously sweetened at all.

We can look around and see that artificial sweeteners have not solved the obesity epidemic.  What we cannot see is what the artificial sweeteners may be causing.