Zero Calorie Sweeteners
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etherealanwar
Posts: 465 Member
Do zero calorie sweeteners really have no calories? I read some articles online that claim that this is untrue and that a packet contains several calories because they use bulking agents such as Maltodextrin and Dextrose which contain calories. They also say that erythritol and xylitol also contain calories. The reason I am asking is because I have recently started using quite a bit of Apriva which does contain maltodextrin and dextrose to go with my strawberries and my weight has been creeping up instead of down this past week and the only change I've made was using this sweetener and counting it as 0 calories.I weigh all my other food so that shouldn't be the problem! It may not be the cause as normal fluctuations happen but I am curious.
I'd rather not introduce something that may affect my progress.
I'd rather not introduce something that may affect my progress.
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Replies
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They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.8 -
Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.1 -
etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.
Even if you were to have 5 times that amount. so 10 tsp per day. amounting to between 20-25 calories per day, or 175 calories per week. that is still only 5% or 1/20th of a lb. So if you are talking about weight gain that is faster than 1lb every 20 weeks. It is not the sweeteners that are doing it.
They MIGHT make you enjoy the food more, in turn making you eat more strawberries ect. for perspective 100g of strawberries has 33 calories. if you are using 2 tsp of sweetener per 100g of strawberries, by the time your week is done for that 175 calories of sweetener, you ate 1155 calories in strawberries doing so.5 -
Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.
Even if you were to have 5 times that amount. so 10 tsp per day. amounting to between 20-25 calories per day, or 175 calories per week. that is still only 5% or 1/20th of a lb. So if you are talking about weight gain that is faster than 1lb every 20 weeks. It is not the sweeteners that are doing it.
They MIGHT make you enjoy the food more, in turn making you eat more strawberries ect. for perspective 100g of strawberries has 33 calories. if you are using 2 tsp of sweetener per 100g of strawberries, by the time your week is done for that 175 calories of sweetener, you ate 1155 calories in strawberries doing so.
Honestly its more around half a cup that I used each time (embarrassingly enough). But yeah at most it would be 60 calories if its 5 cals per 2 tsp. I wouldnt be asking if i only used a tiny amount. I'm still more curious about just whether or not they contain calories not regarding my weight.0 -
I seriously doubt it's the artificial sweetener, but anything is possible.
The solution is eliminate the sweetener and leave everything else the same and see what happens.
You could also give the current regimen a little more time. One week is hardly enough.
Presuming you're not eating too much.0 -
I seriously doubt it's the artificial sweetener, but anything is possible.
The solution is eliminate the sweetener and leave everything else the same and see what happens.
You could also give the current regimen a little more time. One week is hardly enough.
Presuming you're not eating too much.
You're probably right but I am planning on not using any just to see. I barely eat that much considering I stick to 1200-1300 calories a day.
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etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.
Even if you were to have 5 times that amount. so 10 tsp per day. amounting to between 20-25 calories per day, or 175 calories per week. that is still only 5% or 1/20th of a lb. So if you are talking about weight gain that is faster than 1lb every 20 weeks. It is not the sweeteners that are doing it.
They MIGHT make you enjoy the food more, in turn making you eat more strawberries ect. for perspective 100g of strawberries has 33 calories. if you are using 2 tsp of sweetener per 100g of strawberries, by the time your week is done for that 175 calories of sweetener, you ate 1155 calories in strawberries doing so.
Honestly its more around half a cup that I used each time (embarrassingly enough). But yeah at most it would be 60 calories if its 5 cals per 2 tsp. I wouldnt be asking if i only used a tiny amount. I'm still more curious about just whether or not they contain calories not regarding my weight.
Yeah unfortunately politicians sold out that freedom to label things zero calories that still have a few(while under 5). Many companies abuse this as well and change their serving sizes on the box to fit into this category. Even if the reasonable amount of the product used exceeds the serving size they have listed.0 -
Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »Yeah unfortunately politicians sold out that freedom to label things zero calories that still have a few(while under 5). Many companies abuse this as well and change their serving sizes on the box to fit into this category. Even if the reasonable amount of the product used exceeds the serving size they have listed.
Yeah this is very bothersome
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etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.
Even if you were to have 5 times that amount. so 10 tsp per day. amounting to between 20-25 calories per day, or 175 calories per week. that is still only 5% or 1/20th of a lb. So if you are talking about weight gain that is faster than 1lb every 20 weeks. It is not the sweeteners that are doing it.
They MIGHT make you enjoy the food more, in turn making you eat more strawberries ect. for perspective 100g of strawberries has 33 calories. if you are using 2 tsp of sweetener per 100g of strawberries, by the time your week is done for that 175 calories of sweetener, you ate 1155 calories in strawberries doing so.
Honestly its more around half a cup that I used each time (embarrassingly enough). But yeah at most it would be 60 calories if its 5 cals per 2 tsp. I wouldnt be asking if i only used a tiny amount. I'm still more curious about just whether or not they contain calories not regarding my weight.
Aren't you concerned about all the chemicals you are putting into your body?
Pretty sure they are starting to discover that all these artificial sweeteners are more harmful than regular sugar.
Holy cow that's a lot of sweetener.40 -
OldAssDude wrote: »Aren't you concerned about all the chemicals you are putting into your body?
Pretty sure they are starting to discover that all these artificial sweeteners are more harmful than regular sugar.
Holy cow that's a lot of sweetener.
I'm pretty sure there's more evidence that they're harmless then there is saying they're harmful. I'll be fine.
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I think most of the liquid artificial sweeteners are actually zero calorie because they don't have the bulking agents. Liquid sucralose (i.e. liquid Splenda) is my sweetener of choice.3
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etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.
Even if you were to have 5 times that amount. so 10 tsp per day. amounting to between 20-25 calories per day, or 175 calories per week. that is still only 5% or 1/20th of a lb. So if you are talking about weight gain that is faster than 1lb every 20 weeks. It is not the sweeteners that are doing it.
They MIGHT make you enjoy the food more, in turn making you eat more strawberries ect. for perspective 100g of strawberries has 33 calories. if you are using 2 tsp of sweetener per 100g of strawberries, by the time your week is done for that 175 calories of sweetener, you ate 1155 calories in strawberries doing so.
Honestly its more around half a cup that I used each time (embarrassingly enough). But yeah at most it would be 60 calories if its 5 cals per 2 tsp. I wouldnt be asking if i only used a tiny amount. I'm still more curious about just whether or not they contain calories not regarding my weight.
If literally the only change is going from unsweetened strawberries to strawberries with a half cup of Apriva, I'd stop the Apriva and see what happens.1 -
OldAssDude wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.
Even if you were to have 5 times that amount. so 10 tsp per day. amounting to between 20-25 calories per day, or 175 calories per week. that is still only 5% or 1/20th of a lb. So if you are talking about weight gain that is faster than 1lb every 20 weeks. It is not the sweeteners that are doing it.
They MIGHT make you enjoy the food more, in turn making you eat more strawberries ect. for perspective 100g of strawberries has 33 calories. if you are using 2 tsp of sweetener per 100g of strawberries, by the time your week is done for that 175 calories of sweetener, you ate 1155 calories in strawberries doing so.
Honestly its more around half a cup that I used each time (embarrassingly enough). But yeah at most it would be 60 calories if its 5 cals per 2 tsp. I wouldnt be asking if i only used a tiny amount. I'm still more curious about just whether or not they contain calories not regarding my weight.
Aren't you concerned about all the chemicals you are putting into your body?
Pretty sure they are starting to discover that all these artificial sweeteners are more harmful than regular sugar.
Holy cow that's a lot of sweetener.
They're really not starting to discover that.14 -
OldAssDude wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »etherealanwar wrote: »Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »They have near zero calories. In most places if the calorie count is below 5, they are allowed to label it as zero calorie.
If you take diet coke as an example, it is listed as 0 calories per 355 ml, A 2 litre bottle of diet coke would then potentially have between 0 and 28 calories. You could track this if you are using excessively large amounts of diet drinks and sweeteners in baking or cooking. However it is more likely that if you are gaining weight you are eating more than you think of something else.
Check the log entries you are using for accuracy, weigh your food as accurately as possible to make sure.
Well they claim its around 4-5 calories per 2 tsp and Ive had much more than a few tsps haha! Ive been eating the same items and logging them just fine for over 10 months now and have been losing as expected so it's not a logging issue. I'm not too concerned about the slight upward weight trend the past few days as it could potentially be normal fluctuations but I don't want to introduce this variable that can cause me issues.
If it has calories its not zero calorie. That's primarily what I'm trying to get at.
Even if you were to have 5 times that amount. so 10 tsp per day. amounting to between 20-25 calories per day, or 175 calories per week. that is still only 5% or 1/20th of a lb. So if you are talking about weight gain that is faster than 1lb every 20 weeks. It is not the sweeteners that are doing it.
They MIGHT make you enjoy the food more, in turn making you eat more strawberries ect. for perspective 100g of strawberries has 33 calories. if you are using 2 tsp of sweetener per 100g of strawberries, by the time your week is done for that 175 calories of sweetener, you ate 1155 calories in strawberries doing so.
Honestly its more around half a cup that I used each time (embarrassingly enough). But yeah at most it would be 60 calories if its 5 cals per 2 tsp. I wouldnt be asking if i only used a tiny amount. I'm still more curious about just whether or not they contain calories not regarding my weight.
Aren't you concerned about all the chemicals you are putting into your body?
Pretty sure they are starting to discover that all these artificial sweeteners are more harmful than regular sugar.
Holy cow that's a lot of sweetener.
The only place they are 'discovering' this is on the woo peddler's web sights.
OP - If you really think you are using enough to make a difference, either cut back or switch to the liquid sweeteners that don't have all the fillers.10 -
They have calories; not many, and not likely to make you gain weight by themselves. Liquid sucralose I would consider to be zero.
People's weight fluctuates on a regular basis. Use a weight trending app. Make sure you're considering circumstances such as time of the month for women...5 -
OldAssDude wrote: »Aren't you concerned about all the chemicals you are putting into your body?
Pretty sure they are starting to discover that all these artificial sweeteners are more harmful than regular sugar.
Holy cow that's a lot of sweetener.
I've got a couple of secrets for you.
1. Everything's a chemical. Everything.
2. There is no correlation between how safe a chemical is for consumption and how hard it is to pronounce. C6H12O6 (glucose) is perfectly safe even in high doses where as C21H22N2O2 (Strychnine) even in tiny amounts is not so good.12 -
There's 1/4c of Splenda.
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Unless one is using huge bucket fulls of artificial sweetener I highly doubt it has enough calories to affect weight loss.
here in Australia we do not have this "under 5 can be called zero" rule - and things like cans of diet coke (well ,everything actually) states its calorie amount in 100ml or 100g increments.
Cans of diet coke have about 4kj per can - about 1.5 calories.11 -
Warning: Splenda is NOT sucralose. Splenda contains some sucralose but is largely starch.
That being said, you'd have to use a lot of Splenda to accumulate calories. Each packet of Splenda will have about 3.5 calories. Carbohydrate for those watching your macros.1 -
pure stevia leaf extract. No Chemicals or chemically altered ingredients. Beware of some stevia products, they contain dextrose and other fillers. you can buy pure stevia leaf extract online and it takes a very small amount to sweeten anything.3
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