Artificial Sweetners-Gum and Diet Pop

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Replies

  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    edited April 2018
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Just to be clearer, Stevia has not been cleared to be marketed as an artificial sweetener as it has not passed as many of the stringent tests that the other sweeteners have undergone. So it is marketed as a supplement. Yes, the active ingredient is extracted from a plant. Just as aspirin was discovered in willow bark.
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Stevia you find on the shelf is an aglycosolated product of the steviol natural extract. If aspartame is artificial, so is stevia.

    Aspartame is a natural dipeptide that has been methylated. Stevia is a natural sugar alcohol stevioside that has been aglycosolated. Why is one artificial and one natural other than the way in which they are marketed?

    Got it! When I looked it up on the Mayo site it classified it as something not artificial and not natural ("novel" sweetener), and you're right it's marketed as "natural".

    edited for formatting
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    mph323 wrote: »
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Just to be clearer, Stevia has not been cleared to be marketed as an artificial sweetener as it has not passed as many of the stringent tests that the other sweeteners have undergone. So it is marketed as a supplement. Yes, the active ingredient is extracted from a plant. Just as aspirin was discovered in willow bark.
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Stevia you find on the shelf is an aglycosolated product of the steviol natural extract. If aspartame is artificial, so is stevia.

    Aspartame is a natural dipeptide that has been methylated. Stevia is a natural sugar alcohol stevioside that has been aglycosolated. Why is one artificial and one natural other than the way in which they are marketed?

    Got it! When I looked it up on the Mayo site it classified it as something not artificial and not natural ("novel" sweetener), and you're right it's marketed as "natural".

    edited for formatting

    This is what happens when we demand regulatory agencies apply labels that don't actually have any objective definable basis such as "artificial" and "natural". These are really subjective terms that different people use in completely different ways, it is not surprising that it is confusing. These are marketing terms, not regulatable things.

  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,950 Member
    kazane1 wrote: »
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    kazane1 wrote: »
    Water is the only drink our body NEEDS, everything else is just preference the sooner you tune into that the better. Sweeteners.. sugars.. it’s all refined rubbish in my opinion.. water FTW!

    You do realize that most drinks are somewhere around 99% water, right? Soda, tea, coffee, etc. Even milk (which has lots of vital nutrients in it) is somewhere around 90% water.

    Yeah but water is 100% water.. in most cases. So that sounds better to me

    Only 99.9% according to the USDA (for municipal tap or well water). (The rest is minerals.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,515 Member
    I've been using a pentose sugar derived from kabocha squash called BochaSweet. It is the best alternative sweetener that I've found. I've had weight loss surgery and have to be very careful about sugar in my diet...and some alternatives also cause gastrointestinal distress.

    First I've heard of it! Sounds like something to try.

    The problem with an extracted product is that it becomes difficult to answer the question "what's in it?" The answer on the BocaSweet web site is "BochaSweet™ is a proprietary extract from the Japanese kabocha which has a sweet taste." But, whit gives it a sweet taste? It isn't like the company can't find out. And, it's not like every derived plant product is perfectly safe.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited April 2018
    I've been using a pentose sugar derived from kabocha squash called BochaSweet. It is the best alternative sweetener that I've found. I've had weight loss surgery and have to be very careful about sugar in my diet...and some alternatives also cause gastrointestinal distress.

    The BochaSweet cooks beautifully, doesn't elicit an insulin response, and doesn't have the bitterness or cooling effect that many people experience with many stevia products.

    It isn't inexpensive but well worth it in my mind to be able to create great tasting treats that I can eat!

    Wouldn't a pentose sugar be digestable and therefore yield calories? I mean I think our body is perfectly capable of metabolizing pentose sugars. Perhaps it is a sugar alcohol like xylitol?
  • smantha32
    smantha32 Posts: 6,990 Member
    dmz1983 wrote: »
    Hi All,
    What are your experiences with artificial sweeteners? I do not tolerate stevia well as it drops my blood pressure tremendously and causes frequent and urgent urination. I personally dropped all artificial sweeteners for years due to the bad press but I find that it doesn't affect my weight. I actually find that I'll eat less. Instead of dessert I'll have gum. Sometimes in the afternoon a diet pop will help curve my appetite. What have you all experienced? I have also dug into a lot of the research and it actually reassures me that it has been the most studied substance in the food supply and deemed to be safe (not saccharin).

    I developed a horrible sensitivity to all of them. If I even get a little bit I'll feel like I'm being stabbed in the stomach with knives. And then it takes a year of probiotics before I'm halfway normal again. Maybe most of the so called statistics about them are bunk, but I'm definitely one of the exceptions.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
    I find Stevia tastes awful. I like Splenda in my coffee and diet sodas (the normal ones with aspartame).
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,285 Member
    The only sweetener I've had issue with is Sorbitol. I... chain-chewed a double pack of sugarless gum once and spent the next hour dealing with the laxative side effect. I'm not sure how much is too much, so these days if it's not a situation where my only option is to have 'just one' (example: some restaurants where you pay at the counter have a complimentary bowl of candies/after-dinner mints available. I'll take one on my way out.), I just avoid them period.
  • pebble4321
    pebble4321 Posts: 1,132 Member
    I don’t like the taste of most of the artificially sweetened products I’ve tasted (though Jarrah hot choc and Diet Pepsi are ok), so I don’t use much of them. That’s just personal preference though, I have no issues re safety or weight loss.
    And as I don’t drink many fizzy drinks (except beer!) or chew gum, it’s not a problem for me.
  • jasondjulian
    jasondjulian Posts: 182 Member
    kazane1 wrote: »
    Yeah but water is 100% water.. in most cases. So that sounds better to me

    Clearly you've never had our water in Flint, MI!