Health and Fitness Tip #52 - Artificial Sweeteners - Are they good for you?

 

There's a lot of confusion and misconceptions revolving around these non-caloric sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners and the huge list of products sweetened with them are marketed to you relentlessly as "healthy foods" or "healthier" than sugar or corn syrup sweetened products. But are they really?
Some of the most popular artificial sweeteners on the market today are:

• Splenda (sucralose)
• Aspartame
• Saccharine
• Acesulfame Potassium (aka - acesulfame K)

These artificial sweeteners are used in abundance in almost every "diet" drink, "lite" yogurts, puddings, and ice creams, most "low-carb" products, and almost all "reduced-sugar" products. Heck, even most protein powders are loaded with artificial sweeteners too -- just look on the ingredients and you'll usually see one of those nasty artificial sweeteners in just about every protein powder on the market.
Sucralose (aka, splenda) is probably one of the worst offenders of claiming to be "healthy" as they say that it's "made from real sugar". Don't be fooled!  It's still an artificial substance, and a fairly nasty chemical at that.
What they don't tell you is that Splenda is actually a chemically modified substance where chlorine is added to the chemical structure, making it more similar to a chlorinated pesticide than something we should be eating or drinking.
The truth is that artificial sweeteners are not even close to being healthy, and as you'll discover in a minute, can easily be just as bad for you, if not worse, than sugar or corn syrup. Most people think that they are doing something good for themselves by choosing the "diet" drinks or "lite" yogurts compared to the sugar-laden versions, but the problem is that you're exposing yourself to a whole new set of problems with the artificially sweetened drinks and foods.

The fact is, artificial sweeteners vs. sugar or corn syrup is really just a battle between two evils. Which evil is worse?
I'm sure you already know the problems with sugar or high fructose corn syrup sweetened products. The excess empty calories, the massive blood sugar spike, and the resulting insulin surge this creates in your body not only promotes fat gain, but also stimulates your appetite further, making things even worse. These massive blood sugar spikes also contribute to glycation in the cells of your body, which basically makes you age faster.
On the other hand, artificial sweeteners save you calories, but there's growing evidence that they can increase your appetite for sweets and other carbohydrates causing you to eat more later in the day anyway. Therefore, you don't really save any calories at all.
Also, studies are beginning to emerge showing that artificial sweeteners can trigger "sweet recepters" in your stomach that tell your body to produce insulin, even though you didn't actually consume sugar.  These high insulin levels from artificial sweeteners can promote fat storage and trigger cravings, in a similar manner to sugar itself.
All of the 4 artificial sweeteners listed yesterday are nasty chemicals that the human body is simply not meant to ingest, and historically would never have ingested in nature.
However, most of the population is ingesting a whole lot of these chemicals on a daily basis. Other health issues that have been related to artificial sweeteners in scientific studies as well as observations are:

• some have been linked to potential cancer risks
• negative effects on the liver, kidneys, and other organs
• stimulating cravings
• gastrointestinal problems
• developmental problems in children and fetuses
• headaches
• damage to your gut flora (killing beneficial probiotics)

The bottom line is that the body was not designed to deal with foreign substances like artificial sweeteners.

So what are your options for healthier alternatives?

Well, your best alternatives for the caloric sweeteners like sugar or corn syrup are either natural raw honey, organic maple syrup, coconut sugar, or even molasses.
Even though these alternatives still have the same amount of calories as sugar or corn syrup... honey, organic maple syrup, coconut sugar and molasses actually provide some nutrients, including minerals and antioxidants, so it's not just empty calories. Empty calories such as white refined sugar stimulate your appetite more because your body is lacking nutrients.

Now you're probably thinking that you'd like to still save on calories but avoid the nasty artificial sweeteners. Good news... You can!
Stevia is not artificial like the other chemical sweeteners I mentioned. Stevia is simply a natural non-caloric HERB that's been used for thousands of years in some parts of the world. When dried into a powder, it has a sweetness about 200-300 times stronger than sugar.

You can use it in your coffee or tea, to sweeten up plain yogurt, added to smoothies for extra sweetness, in oatmeal, in baking, or where ever else you might need a sweetener but want to reduce the sugar content.