How appropriate to be talking about sweetners on a day when LOTS of sweets are exchanged here in the United States for Valentine's Day. I felt compulsed to talk about sweetners as I was recently reading the February 16, 2009 issue of First Magazine. They gave their lowdown on several sweetners.
I've always been one to exclude artificial sweetners from my diet. First of all, I never liked the aftertaste, and secondly, I never trusted something chemically produced. It seems I've been right to trust my instincts. According to the First article, "Aspertame (brand names: NutraSweet, Equal and Spoonful) is an excitatory neurotoxin that some researchers claim can overstimulate nerve cells and damage their protective barriers". The article also claimed "that a university study linked daily consumption to a 41 percent increased risk to being overweight". Yikes~! That is enough proof for me to continue to avoid it. I have noticed in the last few months that you are hard pressed to find any gum at all that does not have aspartame in it. It's even in Juicy Fruit now. I guess gum companies could not pass up the cheap way to sweeten their gum. Or, I wonder if it has addictive tendencies to get people hooked on gum. I thought the "Ice Cubes" gum was good because Xylitol is the first sweetner listed, and it was a few weeks before I noticed that aspartame is indeed listed. My kids are bummed too because they know I won't allow them to injest this chemical sweetner until they choose to as adults on their own.
Splenda has been on the market for at least a decade now. I always feel bad when I see someone choosing to buy a huge bag of it at the market, much like seeing someone choose to smoke. Splenda (or listed as sucralose more often) is a man-made sweetner that is produced by adding cholorine to sugar. It takes one sugar molocule and replaces it with cholorine, which means it now contains something carginogentic. The First article states "that it can trigger fatigue, high blood pressure and chronic maigraines, according to some studies". I wonder if it doesn't affect arthritis as well, since arthritis is an inflammation of joints, or toxins stuck in your joints. The First article also stated that "despite the manufacturer' claims that sucralose spurs weight loss, research in the journal NeuroImage revealed that, unlike sugar, sucralose doesn't activate the braine regions that signal satiety. As a result poeple who favor the artificial sweetner can end up craving - and overeating - sugary foods." Sucralose has an intense sweetness to me. I can taste it immediately if I happen to take a bite of it with something made with sucralose, which makes it easier to avoid in a way.
I mentioned Xylitol earlier. It is a sweetner made from birch sugar and is used mostly in alternative chewing gum like Spry and some toothpastes. It's in my toothpaste: http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=6895 I found a great website for more information on Xylitol: http://www.xylitol.org/faqs.asp#4
Another sweetner affecting Americans at an alarming rates is high frutose corn syrup. HFCS has replaced sugar in the manufacturing of most processed foods. I have noticed there are more cereals you can buy that are HFCS-free, so manufacturers are starting to notice a market for some of us who will avoid buying HFCS products if possible. You wouldn't expect to find HFCS in most breads, but it's in there as well. We buy a "sugar-free" brand that doesn't have HFCS. We also have replaced our ketchup, relish and other condiments that don't have HFCS. HFCS is natural from corn, but the way your body processes it into fat very quickly is not. It may be linked to our country's surge in diabetes risk and systemic yeast.
Stevia is the only sweetner that's been legal on my anti-yeast diet. It's an extract of a tropical Stevia rebaudiana plant. So, it's a natural product, but the First article says "it is also great because it is a zero-calorie sweetner that keeps weight in check by regulating blood sugar so food is burned for energy rather than getting stored by the body as fat". The thing I have found with stevia is trying different brands. I have found I love the Trader Joe's brand (of course, one that I can't buy nearby). Also, you have to watch how much you use. I use very little stevia to sweeten something. But, I have found that usually I prefer nothing at all. Once you are off sugar, you don't really need it. You get use to things tasting au natural.
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Aspartame is an "intense sweetener" (unlike sugar, xylitol and sorbitol which are "bulk sweeteners") and is 200 times sweeter than sugar. When it is used in gum, it's used in VERY small / negligible amounts only to round out the flavor.
By law, ingredients are listed in decreasing order, so it's most important to see WHERE something falls in the ingredients order.
You'll notice that aspartame is listed very high on diet soda (it IS the sweetener), so the story is very different. Though I am a diet soda drinker, it's the products like these, where aspartame is the first sweetener listed, that you should be concerned about if your're anti-aspartame.
As for the study referenced about obesity: There is no proof of causality, only correlation. "Sugar substitutes" (a better term since not all are artificial - xylitol and sucralose are natural for instance) include far less calories than sugar and are used in food products for that reason. Think chicken & the egg here. The study says that frequent users of aspartame are more likely to be overweight. Because they're overweight, they may be trying to reduce sugar (increaing aspartame usage). Also, the next time you go into McDonald's, just look around. You're almost certain to be in line behind someone overweight who orders 2 Big Macs, Supersized fries ... and a diet soda.
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