Giving up nutrasweet (aspartame)
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Jthanmyfitnesspal
Posts: 3,521 Member
After years of putting nutrasweet in my tea, I'm giving it up. I've found it adds to "gastric distress," particularly now that I've been jogging in the morning. (It appears to have a delayed effect for me, as previously posted. It's taken a long time to figure that out.)
But, I'm enjoying putting honey or agave in my tea after a jog. Then, later in the day, I'm trying to do without. If anyone doesn't think sugar is addictive, just try alternating: sometimes, your tea is wonderfully sweet, other times, it's not. And you want to cry.
But, I'm enjoying putting honey or agave in my tea after a jog. Then, later in the day, I'm trying to do without. If anyone doesn't think sugar is addictive, just try alternating: sometimes, your tea is wonderfully sweet, other times, it's not. And you want to cry.
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Replies
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I guess if it has unpleasant affects on you, giving it up is a good idea.
I mainly drink unsweetened coffee - but now and then I have a favoured tea with dash of honey.
( and I do drink diet sodas)
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Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »After years of putting nutrasweet in my tea, I'm giving it up. I've found it adds to "gastric distress," particularly now that I've been jogging in the morning. (It appears to have a delayed effect for me, as previously posted. It's taken a long time to figure that out.)
But, I'm enjoying putting honey or agave in my tea after a jog. Then, later in the day, I'm trying to do without. If anyone doesn't think sugar is addictive, just try alternating: sometimes, your tea is wonderfully sweet, other times, it's not. And you want to cry.
I'm a bit confused op, you're actually adding sugar to your diet by making the switch-1tbsp of honey has 17g of sugar. Agave has 15g of sugar per tbps. Aspartame has no sugar in it. There's lots of artificial sweeteners out there-have you tried other options to see if they affect your digestion? I use Splenda (sucralose) in my coffee and it has no effect on me.4 -
I'm allergic to aspartame (like, I carry an epi-pen allergic) and have other bad reactions to other artificial sweeteners.
Rather than adding sweeteners at all to your tea, try switching up the type of tea you drink. I've found that the Good Earth Sweet & Spicy is _wonderfully_ sweet all by itself. They have it in a black tea & an herbal version. I prefer the black tea one, but both are awesome either hot or cold.1 -
I am not sure how retraining your palate falls under the heading of an addiction but if you have found a solution to an everyday problem you were having I am glad.8
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Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »If anyone doesn't think sugar is addictive, just try alternating: sometimes, your tea is wonderfully sweet, other times, it's not. And you want to cry.
I've never liked sugar or sweetener in coffee or tea, to me those are not supposed to be sweet beverages.
But that aside, even in your case, you seem to NOT be giving up sugar, but replacing NOT sugar with a little sugar (honey, etc.) and then sometimes drinking tea with neither a non sugar sweetener nor sugar.
So I don't think that, or missing the taste of something you found tasty, suggests anything about addiction. It suggests that you had a taste preference for sweet tea (whether from sugar or not) and miss that taste when having tea without the added sweetener.
As a comparison, there was a time when I preferred my coffee half milk (back in college). I gradually reduced the milk and now prefer it black (as I've done since my late 20s). But if in college I'd started drinking coffee black after my first cup, I would have missed the milk and thought it tasted less good without it. But I wasn't addicted to milk, I never even drank milk at all other than in coffee.
If someone gave me 100% dark chocolate, I'd think nope, not what I want from chocolate, and miss the sweetness even from the 88% I love. But that doesn't mean I'm addicted to sugar, it means that like many people I think some sugar improves the taste of chocolate.
Many people don't care for plain rhubarb and think a little sugar makes it taste better, but that doesn't mean they are addicted to sugar, it again says something about taste preferences.
I don't care for plain rice, I want some kind of meat and veg on it, but I'm not addicted to the various flavors of the foods I enjoy eating with rice. So on.13 -
SarahAnne3958 wrote: »I'm a bit confused op, you're actually adding sugar to your diet by making the switch-1tbsp of honey has 17g of sugar. Agave has 15g of sugar per tbps. Aspartame has no sugar in it. There's lots of artificial sweeteners out there-have you tried other options to see if they affect your digestion? I use Splenda (sucralose) in my coffee and it has no effect on me.
I should have said that I have not liked the other sweeteners, thus I stuck with aspartame all this time. It's probably more what I'm used to than anything else. If I'm going to re-train, I'm going to go with no sweetener at all. Or, when I've had plenty of exercise and need a bit of carb anyway, I add something sugary.
My point is that, when you SOMETIMES add sugar to your tea, it makes you want to ALWAYS add sugar. Sweetness causes a profound philological reaction to varying degrees in different people. Yes, it can feel like an addiction to some.1 -
I just use real sugar when I want the sweetness. The other sweeteners make me physically ill. My rule now is stick to the real thing. 😉1
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I dropped sugar like a rock several months ago after reading what refined sugar and the insidious “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS) does to us (and how HFCS is processed, or not processed, by our bodies!2
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And good for you for giving up sucralose!!!! I know some chemists who won’t eat that stuff.1
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snapshotstacy wrote: »I'm allergic to aspartame (like, I carry an epi-pen allergic) and have other bad reactions to other artificial sweeteners.
Rather than adding sweeteners at all to your tea, try switching up the type of tea you drink. I've found that the Good Earth Sweet & Spicy is _wonderfully_ sweet all by itself. They have it in a black tea & an herbal version. I prefer the black tea one, but both are awesome either hot or cold.
Well, yes, if you are allergic to something, definitely avoid it. And find an alternative you like.
Whether that something is aspartame, tomatoes, nuts, eggs whatever.
But for rest of us: sweeten or don't sweeten your drinks according to your own preferences , being aware of calories, if any, in your choice of sweetener, if you use one.
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And good for you for giving up sucralose!!!! I know some chemists who won’t eat that stuff.
I have worked with many many chemists, doctors and other health proffessionals over many decades.
Of course they are not one homogenous bunch and they eat and dont eat different things for different reasons - personal taste, habit, culture, religion - just like rest of us.
Haven't noticed any who wont eat any sugar or sugar containing products though
(even one of the doctors I currently work with who is a type 1 diabetic - she has tiny portions of cake occasionally)
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I dropped sugar like a rock several months ago after reading what refined sugar and the insidious “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS) does to us (and how HFCS is processed, or not processed, by our bodies!
HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose, the exact same sugars that naturally occur in fruit.
Your body uses it as an energy source in exactly the same way.4 -
150 g of apple (gala) is: 15.5 g sugar, 4 g sucrose, 2.5 g glucose, and 9 g fructose. That means it is approximately 71% fructose, and 29% glucose once the sucrose is broken down. Curious how HFCS is insidious and an apple is not.
Fructose in excess repeatedly without fiber is likely bad news, but 55/45 Fructose/Glucose in moderation and in a diet that includes sufficient fiber, protein, micros,etc. is hardly an issue. It's like being alarmist about apples.
Btw, 100 g of corn (a food that I have been recently told will kill me, because corn is evil and unhealthy, yay, MFP, but a food I'm eating frequently now because it's fresh, in season (well, moving out of season), and I have a farm share and enjoy it), is 6 g total sugar, 2 g fructose, 1 g sucrose, and 3 g glucose, so not sure why HFCS ends up higher in fructose. Presumably its because non sweetcorn (sweetcorn=corn in the US, but we have industrial/feedlot corn too) has a different fructose to glucose ratio despite being less sweet in general.4 -
I agree that small amounts of sweet stuff (sugar, honey, agave syrup, HFCS) is not at all dangerous. Occasional sweets (with even more sugar) add to the the joy of life. There's a reason we serve cake at parties!
I also agree that too much sugar in the diet is bad. An apple has 70kcals, mostly from sugar, but it also has fiber and many good micros. (I eat three servings of fruit almost every day.) These servings are small and are within my balance macro goals. Thus, I will eat an orange, but I wouldn't drink a large glass of orange juice under most circumstances.
I also agree that there is little difference between white sugar, dark sugar, "raw" sugar, honey, agave, and HFCS. The point of HFCS was that the fructose is sweeter tasting than glucose, so if you raise the proportion, you can use less sugar. Agave syrup, which is a bit higher in fructose than sucrose (which is 50:50), is similar to HFCS, but it contains a few beneficial micros as does honey0 -
Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »SarahAnne3958 wrote: »I'm a bit confused op, you're actually adding sugar to your diet by making the switch-1tbsp of honey has 17g of sugar. Agave has 15g of sugar per tbps. Aspartame has no sugar in it. There's lots of artificial sweeteners out there-have you tried other options to see if they affect your digestion? I use Splenda (sucralose) in my coffee and it has no effect on me.
I should have said that I have not liked the other sweeteners, thus I stuck with aspartame all this time. It's probably more what I'm used to than anything else. If I'm going to re-train, I'm going to go with no sweetener at all. Or, when I've had plenty of exercise and need a bit of carb anyway, I add something sugary.
My point is that, when you SOMETIMES add sugar to your tea, it makes you want to ALWAYS add sugar. Sweetness causes a profound philological reaction to varying degrees in different people. Yes, it can feel like an addiction to some.
So I don't drink tea, but SOMETIMES I add sugar to my coffee but it doesn't mean I ALWAYS want to. Just crappy coffee. Even then, 1 cube (I use cubes at home) is often TOO MUCH and I won't finish the coffee because it's too sweet.
Just because you like sugar sometimes doesn't mean you won't enjoy it without sometimes too.4 -
yes thats true.
and come to think of it, I do occasionally put 1/2 tsp sugar in coffee, mainly if I get it out somewhere and is too strong for me.
a problem I have solved by asking for half strength cappacino - but if I forget and get strong one, I add little bit of sugar.
However I get poster's point - it is possible to retrain your taste buds - and if you want to start weaning yourself from sweetener for whatever reason, that is fine too.0 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »I dropped sugar like a rock several months ago after reading what refined sugar and the insidious “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS) does to us (and how HFCS is processed, or not processed, by our bodies!
Carlos - “HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose, the exact same sugars that naturally occur in fruit.
Your body uses it as an energy source in exactly the same way.
Wow a whole bunch of hate on my sugar comment so sorry. And my comment was about sucralose not Aspertame (ugh!) so off on the specific comment.
But...from what I’ve read (from medical Dr.) is that HFCS is processed only by our liver and any excess goes straight to storage (turns to Fat) vs sugar which can be processed by every cell in our body (still too much of it and it stores also) and the insulin spike this causes is not good.
Lemurcat2 - Agree - this aligns with what I read on this also. Thanks.
Paperpudding - I’m not a chemist but it’s about the chlorine molecule added in the “chlorination process” to make that stuff that some people aren’t on board with so as you say, some are and some aren’t. Too bad we have to try so hard to get real and accurate health info and good luck to us getting it.
My opinion- some sugar good. Too much sugar bad. More natural the better. Ok to use a substitute and more info on it the better.
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Carlos_421 wrote: »I dropped sugar like a rock several months ago after reading what refined sugar and the insidious “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS) does to us (and how HFCS is processed, or not processed, by our bodies!
Carlos - “HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose, the exact same sugars that naturally occur in fruit.
Your body uses it as an energy source in exactly the same way.
Wow a whole bunch of hate on my sugar comment so sorry. And my comment was about sucralose not Aspertame (ugh!) so off on the specific comment.
But...from what I’ve read (from medical Dr.) is that HFCS is processed only by our liver and any excess goes straight to storage (turns to Fat) vs sugar which can be processed by every cell in our body (still too much of it and it stores also) and the insulin spike this causes is not good.
Lemurcat2 - Agree - this aligns with what I read on this also. Thanks.
Paperpudding - I’m not a chemist but it’s about the chlorine molecule added in the “chlorination process” to make that stuff that some people aren’t on board with so as you say, some are and some aren’t. Too bad we have to try so hard to get real and accurate health info and good luck to us getting it.
My opinion- some sugar good. Too much sugar bad. More natural the better. Ok to use a substitute and more info on it the better.
The bolded is incorrect for reasons I explained upthread.
Table sugar is sucrose which is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. Fructose is processed by the liver (and will not lead to added fat unless you are in a calorie surplus). Glucose is what causes blood sugar to rise and thus insulin (which isn't bad in a healthy person). Fructose actually is sometimes preferred for diabetics because it is not going to cause blood sugar to rise in the same way.
HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose, so hardly a significant difference. (It's often in cheaper foods since it's easy to use in ultra processed products, very cheap, and sweeter so less can be used. I think this is a good reason to avoid it -- foods with sucrose tend to be tastier -- but think it's unlikely that there's any meaningful health difference. A major source of HFCS in the diets of some is excess consumption of sugary sodas, but I think that would be as problematic if the sodas were still made with sucrose.)
Some fruits (like bananas) have about the same percentage of fructose vs. glucose as table sugar, some actually have more glucose than fructose (like peaches), and some have a far higher percentage of fructose than HFCS does (like apples).
Personally I think it's sensible to not eat too much added sugar (which will naturally happen if you just focus on eating a healthful diet and including what you should in the diet), and think foods with high intrinsic sugar are positive additions to the diet often, but there's way too much misinformation or scare-mongering out there positing that somehow sugar in fruit is different in kind than other kinds of sugar or that fructose is evil or that HFCS is somehow dramatically different from table sugar, and therefore I feel compelled to correct the record.6 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »I dropped sugar like a rock several months ago after reading what refined sugar and the insidious “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS) does to us (and how HFCS is processed, or not processed, by our bodies!
Carlos - “HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose, the exact same sugars that naturally occur in fruit.
Your body uses it as an energy source in exactly the same way.
Wow a whole bunch of hate on my sugar comment so sorry. And my comment was about sucralose not Aspertame (ugh!) so off on the specific comment.
But...from what I’ve read (from medical Dr.) is that HFCS is processed only by our liver and any excess goes straight to storage (turns to Fat) vs sugar which can be processed by every cell in our body (still too much of it and it stores also) and the insulin spike this causes is not good.
Lemurcat2 - Agree - this aligns with what I read on this also. Thanks.
Paperpudding - I’m not a chemist but it’s about the chlorine molecule added in the “chlorination process” to make that stuff that some people aren’t on board with so as you say, some are and some aren’t. Too bad we have to try so hard to get real and accurate health info and good luck to us getting it.
My opinion- some sugar good. Too much sugar bad. More natural the better. Ok to use a substitute and more info on it the better.
No, no bunch of hate at all.
a whole lot of disagreeing with what you said - totally different thing.
People disagreed with what you said because what you said was incorrect, not because of any hate.
also, no, I didnt say some are on board with it and some aren't - I said no health professionals I have ever worked with are ones "who wont eat that stuff" - like the ones you claim you know.5 -
Have you tried monkfruit sweetener? I just bought some, going to try it in my coffee tomorrow. I tasted a little bit, and it is very sweet with none of the fake sugar sugar substitutes fake aftertaste.0
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