Monday, May 17, 2010

To Splenda or Not to Splenda?

That is the question! Actually that is not really the question. And I'm not bashing Splenda or other artificial sweeteners. I think there is a good place for it.

I just notice that I use Splenda far too often. It dawned on me this morning as I was making a cup of hot tea. I drink 1 cup (well, the cup holds more than 1 cup!) of hot tea every morning. And I sweeten it with Splenda...
every...morning. I also have lots of other "diet" stuff that contains artificial sweeteners.

So as I was making my tea, I decided not to use the Splenda in it this morning. And I thought that maybe I should try to drink my morning tea without it from now on. I decided I'm not going to go crazy and cut out everything, I'm just going to take baby steps starting with the morning cup o' tea.

I wanted to do a little research online regarding artificial sweeteners and the pros and cons. Searching for actual
legitimate research online though is very hard to do. It's hard to know who the source is and where their information came from.

I did find one site that gave a nice small breakdown on the pros and cons among other information (including stuff about molecules and such). You can read the article here. Again, I don't know where all the info is directly from. Take the info as you wish. But here were some of the pros and cons of Splenda.

PROS: no calories, no bad aftertaste, no affect on insulin or glucose levels, can be used in cooking and baking, FDA approved, Helpful for those suffering from diabetes and obesity, does not promote tooth decay.

CONS: empty sweetness causes body to crave carbohydrates, studies in rats show that the rats that were given sucralose had shrunken thymus glands, enlarged livers and kidneys, no testing done with humans, sucralose may have laxative effects including diarrhea and gas (ewwww!), etc.

I also know some people get headaches with artificial sweeteners. I'm not one of them.

**So what are your thoughts on artificial sweeteners? Do you use them? If you do, do you use them a lot or just a little?

I'm just starting out small. Not putting it in my tea. If I feel the need, I'll make other changes.

3 comments:

  1. I stopped using Splenda and other artificial sweeteners in Sept. Like you, I realized how much Splenda I was ingesting. Between coffee, diet sodas and the foods,I was getting a lot! After weaning myself, I notice how much better I feel! Every afternoon, I would feel achy and fatigued. I just chalked it up to "getting older" -LOL! But, after stopping with the sweeteners, I noticed those aches and pains go away. I'm not sure if it's helped with the cravings, though :( Maybe sugar has got to go next... oh, the horror...

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  2. lol Marisa!

    Thanks, that's very interesting!

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  3. I posted a comment last night, but apparently, it never made it.

    Anyway, I'll make it short. Yes, I admit, I'm a "user". I definitely have issues with it, but it does keep me away from the real sweets most times and doesn't cause me any issues that I know of, headaches, etc. I do wish I could "kick the habit" though because I know that artificial generally is not a good thing, but I don't know if I could give this one up.

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