This is day two of the 5 Days Low Glycemic Eating program, where we are balancing out our blood sugar, improving our energy and taking the first step towards kicking our sweet tooth cravings. Not an easy thing. We are so hooked on sweetness that massive powerful industries are built on the fake chemical version of sugar and our weakness for sweetness. This fake stuff is being put into everything- from vitamins, to soda, to gum, to tooth paste.
Artificial sweetener is poison. How’s that for a bold stand on things? Poison is defined as a substance that can cause disturbance to and organism and I therefore, I stick like white bread in the colon by my statement.
The way I see it, the food we eat can be on either side of the fence. On one side of the fence are the foods that build our health. These are the foods that nourish our cells, fuel our brains, aid in digestion and assimilation of nutrients, balance our blood sugar and hormones and generally make us healthier. When it comes to artificial sweetener, I question whether I should even be writing about it here. For one, it is definitely not on the health building side of the fence and two, it is not food. Artificial sweeteners (whether they are ‘made from sugar’ or not) are toxic .
Now, I don’t really give a rats back side whether aspartame causes cancer in rats, as some studies both prove and disprove. I also don’t care much for any study that says that artificial sweetener doesn’t lead to Alzheimer’s, obesity, or neurological disorders. I have never, ever, never seen a study that proves it to be healthy, health building or health supportive.
I don’t need to see proof that something man-made in a lab won’t kill me, for me to eat it. I want proof that something man-made will heal.
According to a 1998 survey, 144 million American adults routinely eat and drink low-calorie, sugar-free products such as desserts and artificially sweetened sodas and gum. The FDA has approved five artificial sweeteners:
- Acesulfame potassium (Sunett)
- Aspartame (NutraSweet or Equal)
- Sucralose (Splenda)
- D-Tagatose (Sugaree)
- Saccharin (Sweet ‘N Low)
The reason these sweeteners are intended for health purposes is because they are anywhere from 200 to 400 times sweeter than sugar which means a very small amount is needed to add sweetness, and therefore doesn’t register on the caloric scale or on the blood sugar meter. Consuming a small amount may seem harmless, but what if you put it in your coffee, chew gum, brush your teeth with conventional toothpaste, have a diet soda, or even some cookies, candies or cereals a few times a week? What about every day? What is the collective load of all that?
Artificial sweeteners are chemicals, and chemicals in the body are toxic. We know that toxins build up and get stored in the cells of our body, specifically, the fat cells. And why do most people switch to low cal sweetener options? To lose weight, right? Two and two my friends, two and two.
Another reason people often use these sweeteners, and dear me, are advised by doctors and dietitians to do so, is because they have no affect on blood sugar. Again this doesn’t make it healthy. Our body uses glucose as fuel. When we taste something sweet, the brain sends the signal that calories/fuel/glucose (whatever you want to call it here) are on their way. Alas- our brain just got faked out by a chemical sweetener. We have momentarily satisfied a sweet craving without spiking our blood sugar, but as a result of this fake out, we may find another craving not too long later as our body was all geared up for a little calorie action from food or real, calorie containing sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners, therefore, can cause the poison soda-pop sippers to either keep sipping (that’s what I like to call a vicious cycle), or keep snacking (another viscous cycle).
That is how artificial sweeteners can lead to weight gain. Hmmm, you might be saying, that makes sense. Doesn’t it just!
There have been many studies proving the hazards of artificial sweeteners and many more in defense of the little fake devils. You know my stance on these things- When in doubt, keep it out!
Come back tomorrow for more of this common sense all natural, warning label free info. In the meantime, have a gander at this:
Additional Resources/References
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=1611955&page=1
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/330/7486/309-a
http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C237252.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8373935
Ready to cut your sweet addiction? See How Low Can You Go. Click here for 5 Days Low Glycemic e-tutorial details, buy it now for $12 or get the healthybundle2009 $30 deal. Details here.
I am aware that this post might make the artificial sweetener consumers angry and defensive. That is a-okay by me. You won’t catch me defending my stance further or in any way being swayed into adding these foods into my diet. If you wish to comment counter to my opinion, do so constructively, without being condescending or rude if you actually want your opinion shared.
AMEN to everything said in your beautifully written post. Thank you for speaking the truth!
make that an AMEN from me too.
Fab-u-louso! I feel that Americans, as a culture, have a little greed problem. I want to eat and eat and eat, but I don’t want to get fat. I will eat fake food, toxic food, food that exploits the natural resources of other countries, …but I don’t want to pay a alot…and STILL not get fat. The ‘artificial sweetener’ people hit the nail on the head with their products, and they are given us what we WANT, not what we NEED. It’s nuts how people, even though they hear how terrible these chemicals are, would rather do unto their bodies rather than add the additional calories. Yikes.
We need to love our bodies enough to feed it in the way it deserves, and not ‘trick’ it into being full. <3
Thank you for posting this Meghan, you rock.
Very interesting post as always!
I found that once I stopped eating artificial sweeteners (which made a brief appearance in my diet for a couple years) I stopped craving sweets as much and ate less. I found joy in the more natural sweeteners and haven’t looked back since.
Artificial sweeteners are indeed POISON. I was misdiagnosed with IBS and assorted other problems throughout college and into my early twenties. Fed up with doctors who couldn’t agree on what I had – or who kept ordering more tests and drugs without being able to say exactly what was wrong with me – I went to a nutritionist. She took one look at my food log during the intake visit and said very gently, “I think you made a mistake…you put down that you drink several litres of diet cola a day.” It wasn’t a mistake. I started my day with aspartame-laced Crystal Light and drank several litres of diet cola daily, along with other foods filled with aspartame. She suggested that the aspartame was causing my problems. I went cold turkey off aspartame. Within a month, all of my “symptoms” went away. Miracle cure, eh docs? Stay away from all artificial sweeteners….you don’t need them one bit, and they WILL poison you, slowly or quickly.
Why are you always talking about what the FDA does? Do you even have a clue that our food supply here in Canada is regulated by Health Canada, and that this a different organization from FDA? Everything from food additives, to nutrient content claims to health claims to ingredient labelling is regulated by Health Canada in this country, not FDA. The sweeteners that are approved for use in Canada are different from those in the US.
Keep up the good work. I admire you, Meghan, for posting this. Somebody has to fight back.
Knowledge is power.
And I like what Thomas said in his book….”We don’t need to …lace our meals with tiny, horrid molecul(es) [that they thing will do wonders, because all they care about is to ] create a higher quarterly return for some greedy set of imbeciles in hand-tailored suites and Gucci ties, sitting smugly around the board room table in a high rise somewhere” *(quoted from End of Food by Thomas F. Pawlick)
Love todays post. As an american who reads your posts I’m glad you debunk FDA approvals. Just because something is approved it doesn’t mean it needs to be eaten. I don’t eat or drink anything that is artificially sweetened. I’ve had two very bad reactions to aspartame…long before I knew what it was. I’ve steered clear of it ever since. I try my hardest to follow the philosophy that if all the ingredients aren’t made by God then I don’t need to eat it.
Francesca,
Why is that I still see Aspartame; Sucralose (Splenda) and god knows what is in our Canadian grocery stores. And if you have not noticed majority of the stuff sitting on Canadian grocery stores is imported – largely from the us.
Nice article Meghan…and well written too. I couldn’t agree more. We are as a people addicted to sweets. I used to eat a LOT of sugar laden foods…and when I cut out candy, I wanted bread, and when I cut that I wanted fruit…and when I cut that back..I wanted soda.
SODA
I don’t even drink it. but I was craving it.
sheez.
I have never been a big pink packet (or blue, or yellow) person. I have in the past used it…and consumed it probably from packaged foods…but I feel so much better being off it…and knowing if I eat sugar..it’s SUGAR (or agave nectar, or stevia)
Thanks for the article. I think we need to hear it even if it ruffles feathers.
Aha – I have been struggling to explain to people why I avoid artificial sweeteners, and have been stuck with saying: ‘because they’re chemicals and I try to avoid them.’
But what you said here really resonates:
“I don’t need to see proof that something man-made in a lab won’t kill me, for me to eat it. I want proof that something man-made will heal.”
Perfect. Thank you.
Thanks for writing about this!
It actually makes me shudder when I see my mom pouring packs and packs of Splenda into her coffee everyday!
I’m sending this to her
Thanks for posting this Meghan! It’s a wonderfully written article about why we should not be ingesting these poisons. My dad is such a health nut since he had a heart attack, but he still does not comprehend that Splenda is worse for him than putting a little real butter on his baked potato. He buys the huge pack of Splenda at Sam’s Club and uses this to sweeten everything. It’s worse because my mom, who is diabetic, also uses Splenda. I think this is part of the reason she can’t get her insulin and blood levels right…you did a great job of explaining how the artificial sweeteners trick the body. I now have a great way to show my parents why they need to stay away from this crap! Thanks
I’ve never understood the point of artificial sweeteners. Why not just use the real thing, only less of it and less frequently? Pop is a treat: if you like it, drink real pop once in a while, as opposed to swilling cans of diet pop every day. I’ve never understood why anyone would enjoy that.
Thanks for another awesome article (and there are many of us in the US that read this blog). There are soooo many people that are fooled into believing that artificial sweeteners are healthy — how wrong they are!!
Thank you so much. Many years ago my diet was filled with this poison as well, at some point I started researching my health and switched to a clean eating diet. My first target in the gradual change was the artificial sweeteners getting rid of it was the best thing I EVER did. I lost weight, got rid of cravings, got rid of headaches (and all the advil I took), felt a million times better, etc etc etc. I truly believe this stuff is poison. It’s hard to believe I used to think it tasted good, recently I accidentally took a sip from a friends drink that had diet soda in it and almost threw up the taste of chemicals was so awful to me.
This past summer I worked with a guy who thought Splenda was a miracle food. He kept trying to push his wifes Splenda baking on me, it was awful. I tried to explain my views like you have because my polite refusal was not enough for him but he just got so angry. It was really terrible. All the guys also took this think called SuperPump, you can look it up if you want to be shocked by the things people will consume, that contained Splenda, and about 98797 other chemicals. One guy had to stop taking it because he literally had personality changes and aggression from it yet the others still drank it like nothing.
so anyways point being is thanks for such a wonderful post.
Thanks for informing people about this. There was actually a movement here in Santa Fe to ban aspartame from the whole city. It didn’t pass, but it might’ve woken up some people to the dangers.
I never thought I’d encourage people to eat sugar, but compared to artificial sweeteners, it’s way better!
Great post!
Thank you! As always, your post is thoughtful, well-researched and informative. I, too, have been struggling with how to explain my avoidance of artificial sweetners to others. It’s just amazing how little the average person knows about what they put into their body. My GP told me to avoid aspartame during my pregnancy because it is a neurotoxin to the fetus. Neurotoxin! And it’s the most common sweetner available! Not to mention the cheapest. Thanks so much for helping to get this information out there. You rock!
I love your criterion for choosing sweeteners (or any food) based on whether it supports/helps/improves health rather than “it doesn’t kill you.” Think of how many “food” products we’d have to scrap if we used your definition instead of the FDA’s (or Health Canada’s)!
[...] sweeteners are poison – Meghan Telpner tells it like it is. (And takes no shit from riffraff commenters, so be forewarned you trolls!) [Making Love in the [...]
[...] of it should be a red flag– you can bet it’s not good for the bod. To learn why, read this post. Then go back tomorrow for Part [...]
“I don’t need to see proof that something man-made in a lab won’t kill me, for me to eat it. I want proof that something man-made will heal.”
LOVE IT.
Can’t wait for the rest of these posts this week!!
Love it! I’ve tried to convince friends and family to stop adding these sweeteners to their coffees but to no avail. I’ve stopped drinking soft drink and as a treat drink juice or iced tea. It’s all water for me! (Or smoothies).
I often worry that my dad’s consumption of soft drinks over the years has contributed to or caused his Parkinson’s…. he cut back on it for a while but I guess I haven’t sold him on it’s evils. Sigh. I have an aunt who was getting tremors in her neck and cut out the diet sodas and it went away. Thanks for the great info Meghan… it will help people for sure.
Wuhoo! This is just what I needed to support my own desire to cut diet coke out of my life once and for all. I have a theory….do you ever see skinny people drinking diet coke or eating special K?!! It’s a huge soapbox rant for me.
I once had a lady tell me that aspartame is given to cancer patients to help them GAIN weight. Not sure if that’s entirely true….HOWEVER…there’s some merit there.
It’s interesting….that I feed my children and myself in two entirely different ways…children are free eating (GF, CF, SF DF & Preservative Free) while I am a diet coke fiend. Yuck! Farewell DC, farewell!
THANK you for writing this! I try to bring this up on my blog every now and then too! Love to see others doing it as well!
GREAT post! I stopped consuming AS about a year ago. I am SO glad! I feel much better! Great info here!
[...] are so hooked on the sweet taste that there are massive industries built up around this addiction. My take on artificial sweeteners is posted in length here. And then we have the more natural versions like xylitol and stevia. I use stevia on occasion but [...]
and I will give you an AMEN to that!
Do you have a clue how much more funding the FDA has for studies than Health Canada or how much Health Canada takes the lead from the FDA? If you would like to reword your comment to be more constructive, go ahead, as this one may soon be removed.
You mean how many food items we’d GET to scrap
Though then I might be out of a job.