Sweeteners

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How to choose a sweetener, with links to the appropriate studies to back up the claims.

http://befoodsmart.com/sweet/

The number of sweeteners available today is staggering. We see high fructose corn syrup, sorbitol, dextrose, xylitol, and sugar in our packaged foods along with white, blue, pink, brown and now green packets to spruce up that iced tea in restaurants. If you are keeping up with the trends, agave nectar and stevia are all the rage. But have you ever stopped to wonder what all the sweeteners really are? Regardless of where you ended up on the flowchart or what you think of your choice, understanding what the sweetener is and where it comes from is the first step.

Our goal at Be Food Smart is to educate people about the hundreds of additives in our food. We've researched and graded all the sweeteners on this chart separately (each has a full description, alternate names, allergy information and possible health effects).

The bottom line is we all need to drastically reduce our intake of sweeteners. Our advice? Eat less of the sweet stuff, but when you do, go natural and choose minimally processed sweeteners without all the chemicals and potential side effects.