to think that food manufacturers should be forced to use the phrase 'with artificial sweeteners' instead of 'no added sugar'

[MistyValley]

as gullible people may think that they are making a healthy choice when in fact they aren't.

It's downright misleading, many's the time my PFB has been offered squash at a friend's house with the mother saying 'it's okay, it's a no added sugar one'.

It may have no extra sugar, but it's sure as hell packed with dodgy chemicals to make it taste sweet and nasty you loon.

My assumption that people assume "no added sugar" options are healthier is based on the fact that every time I encounter such a product, someone is showing me that this is what they think.

YANBU

No Added Sugar is clearly a phrase worth using, otherwise they wouldn't use it. It works. People think it is healthier.

I would like to see artificial sweeteners labelled on the bottle.

If you want to drink it, that's fine, I don't care. But I would like people to be more informed.

Agree 100% would make my life so much easier if it said contains artificial sweetners so that I didn't have to combe through every ingredients list to avoid them.

These sweeteners may have been approved by the FSA, BUT none of these studies have been conducted on developing children which we know can behave differently to certain chemicals to fully grown adults.

All I know is that my migraines decreased by around 80% once I cut all aspartame out of my diet!

Corn syrup and fructose are not artificial sweetners.

Substances like aspartame and sorbitol, however, are.

As I said before, IF people have realised what's actually in 'no added sugar' drinks, are aware of any potential health risks, and are fine with it, then no problem. As long as they haven't been misled into thinking that the only difference is that they don't have so much sugar.

But thier are plenty of other products that actualy advertise, No Articial Sweetners, flavours or preserves. So if i come across a product that does not say that I assume that it did have them inside it.

Am i not normal then? but then again i dont go reading all ingrediants that i buy, not that bothered but i am healthy and very fit. I just realise what a healthy balanced diet actualy is.

I suppose the thing is, if you are really fussed about artificial sweeteners you will make extra effort to check your products to see if they contain them.,

And all ingrediants are on the packet of every food sold in the UK. If you wanted "no artifical sugers" in big bold at the front then some one else will also want "salt" and "Suger" etc, before you know it the container would look like a graffeated pack and no room for nice pictures etc.

Where would it stop.

Yes indeed, where would it stop eh.

Lol @ sugar being essential as part if a healthy balanced diet! If only there actually was a cake and chocolate food group - mmmmmm :)

Op, Yanbu. I agree that people see sugar free as healthier but i would choose sugar over an artificial sweetener anyday! There are artificial sweeteners in some crisps!

Bubbleymummy - Suger is essential for your diet. your body could not function without it. this is basic biology. the same as salt, fats etc. It is the excess that some poeple have that is bad.

Some people just need to take responsibility for thier own actions. their fat because they ate shit loads not because it contained suger or artifical sugers etc.

"The government licenses the use of these artificial sweeteners"

If they are so great/harmless/non-contentious, why do they need to be licenced???

All food ingrediants have to be approved / licensed to some extent.

If they where harmful then you would not be aloud to have them in so much of our foods.

"Suger (sic) is essential for your diet"

Don't kid yourself MRSPOC!!!

NOT in the form of sugar as we know it it's not (white sugar/brown sugar/all the sugar syrups etc) and especially NOT the sugar used to sweeten foods (which is what we are talking about here). Your body will break all carbohydrates (even the complex ones) down into sugar to get all the simple sugars it requires for fuel. SUGAR as an ingredient/food in itself is completely NOT ESSENTIAL, and excessive sugar is in fact quite dangerous. (The body will convert excessive sugar into fat as it is safer for the body to have excessive fat than excessive sugar in the bloodstream).

If sugar was essential how on earth did we survive let alone develop before processed sugar was invented & made widely available fairly recently???

YANBU with a general point about good labelling. Manufacturers sail as close to the wind as they can, I think that a lot of labelling is misleading and that teh intention of the people devising the labels is to mislead.

Stuff like foods which are very high in fat and salt with "low sugar!!!" emblazoned across them. Foods which are very high in salt and sugar "really low fat!!!". Of course it is all misleading.

Plus my personal annoyance when they take a nice natural basic product like yoghurt, get rid of what makes it taste nice ie the fat, stuff it full of sugar instead to make palatable, then write "1/2 the fat of normal yoghurt" across the front in big letters. And then highly intelligent people like my work colleagues buy it as they think it's a healthy option.

I know there is a group of people who say "it's all written on the back it's their own fault" but really how many people have the time, wherewithall and inclination to read the whole label of every single thing they buy, maintain an encyclopaedic knowledge of E numbers and additives, and keep well abreast of current nutritional thinking? Ridiculous suggestion.

So in short YANBU but the people buying this stuff are not loons they are perfectly sane.

I agree that it is deliberately misleading. I think there will be a percentage of buyers who choose them as they see them as a healthier drink, but also others who buy them because they prefer sweeteners over sugar.

I actually avoid these products and would rather buy one with sugar and no sweeteners. Based on nothing in particular I just don't trust sweeteners and also don't like the after taste.

So many products that are made out to appear more healthy than they are...

OP, I totally agree with you.

On the other hand, I don't know what I think about the drive in some areas to replace cane sugar with apple juice concentrate. Surely sugar from plants is not going to be much worse or better for you either way? I guess I have a limited amount of interest in this area and it stops at artificial sweeteners. :)

i think most people realise the difference and to be honest i'd rather sweetner than sugar (teeth troubles)! damned if you do and if you don't

Thing is, a lot of the 'no added sugar' products still contain sugar anyway. Just an indeterminate amount.

Don't see what's wrong with kids having diluted 100% fruit juice as 'squash', and being encouraged to drink plain tap water.

Totally agree re the preposterous 'low fat!' descriptions, when all they have done is added tons of sugar/sweetener and salt.

My ds goes hyper off sweetners yanbu

mrspoc, you didn't get my point which is: artificial sweeteners don't trigger your 'full' senses so you can eat more of them that you would had the sweetener been sugar.

YADNBU

Older sweeteners have been proved repeatedly to cause cancer in rats(not humans as of yet). However the Cancer research site says research is needed on the new sweeteners which hasn't happened yet.

I never let my kids consume sweeteners for the above reasons and I don't want them to get used to over sweet tastes. Anything that isn't good enough for rats and needs research sorry no way. I find it slightly amusing that people make such a fuss over formula which most babies only consume for 6 months or so yet will happily feed their kids their entire childhood crap such as the above.

My kids have never eaten artificial sweeteners. They are 7,7 and 6 and none of them of a fleck of decay,nothing. You don't need artificial sweeteners to have healthy teeth.

What really annoys ne about food labelling is that a food or dink can say "No artificial colours or flavours" and yet can contain artificail sweetners such as aspartame. Why is aspartame not classified as an artificial flavour??!

YANBU

Although no added sugar doesn't bother me too much. It's the no artificial flavours or colours spashed across the front and then with artificial sweeteners in the ingredients on the back. If you're going to run with the natural=good artificial=bad line at least be consistent in your approach.

Can't stand the aftertaste of artificial sweeteners myself and I rather selfishly think that if it was highlighted more prominently that products contained it there might be more stuff about that doesn't contain it. Yoghurts without sweetener are getting harder and harder to find.

I try to avoid artificial sweetners and if something says it "contains no added sugar" I usually don't buy it because it will have disgusting artificial sweetners - I actively look for things that don't contain artificial sweetners but they are hard to avoid, hate the fact that tonic has them too, really puts me off gin, maybe they are good for my health after all - look at all the rubbish that I don't buy because of artificial sweetners.