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.

TattyDevine - I'm with you on being very at the cosmetics / hair industry's soppy and misleading descriptions of their 'natural' chemical-free products. Just because they have a miniscule squirt of organic lavender oil in them doesn't make them 'chemical-free' and full of wholesome goodness. As you say, the phrase 'chemical-free' is a nonsense anyway.

You can't win. If you do the water thing people think you are deranged.

(Not that I did)

Plus the water only kids go round stalking discarded beakers at playgroups and coffee afternoons, sucking laciviously at the devils teat like a nicotine addict on a a discarded fagg butt.

Aspartame makes DS1 crazy, like bounce of the walls bite himself crazy, well it used to he hasn't had it for years and I don't intend to test the theory.

You don't need sugar for a healthy diet, you do need some carbohydrates but you can get the necessary from fruit and veg.

If I want to sweeten something I have honey and molasses sugar and do really like the mentholy taste of xylitol in my coffee but I wouldn't give it to the kids.

I think YABU though OP people know there are artificial sweeteners in those products but they believe they are healthier than sugar. Their call, I don't really mind if the kids have crap sometimes as long as it isn't aspartame for the reasons mentioned above.

Misty, I'm with you, though its not so much that "chemical free" is necessarily nonsense in itself (though it is mostly "untrue") but that chemical isn't necessarily "bad". Chemicals are often natural by their very nature.

Then you get your mineral oils and whatnot in cosmetics which disagree with some...you just have to do your reasearch (and fall back to your high school chemistry, sometimes, and where that fails, Wikipeadia reins on simple basic facts like that) and just educate yourself and decide accordingly. And not put unrealistic expectations on yourself or your family - you have to look at the bigger picture sometimes.

I joke not when I talk of teenagers mainlining Red Bull and MaccyD's - and their parents are the preening ones, because hell, it aint crack cocaine.

And things that are natural aren't by definition good for you (eg poisonous mushrooms).

Having said that I'd still go for sugar or alcohol over saccharine or aspartame every time!

I think sometimes also, (to respond to Morloth's post) it might depend what's healthy for your own genetic profile.

My kids ARE prone to chunkiness. I have to watch them like hawks, but without them knowing, lest I give them a complex. They were born HEFTY and its an effort just to get them down to the 75th centile by the time they start school without actively starving them. Anything over the 91st centile at school age is overweight. Mine were born off the charts. That means they have to drop several centiles in just 4 and a bit years without going hungry. Its no mean feat. Yet the other thread shows its expected of me or people will assume portion sizes are too big. I'm lucky if they eat 3 pieces of penne pasta, and the last time they had sweets was Christmas. So I'm not going to give them 200 calories worth of "natural" fruit juice a day, sorry! If I do, I'll get judged by the same people who judge me for allowing occasional aspartame. That's another thread though.

Someone with Type 2 diabetes may well be better off using "no-added sugar". Someone with intolerances and allergies may well not be. People with weak, decaying, dogey teeth genetically may be better off with aspartame (fruit acids aside). Not sure about the cancer link at all BUT those with a strong linke of cancer may not.

Etc etc.

The thing is that everything is made of chemicals. Some your body can tolerate better than others. Artificial sweeteners I'm personally not sure about, so prefer to avoid. Agree that crack's probably marginally worse though

YANBU in my opinion. I don't think these things are suitable for children and they could actually be consuming quite a lot of them over the years. I don't suppose much research has been done on that, as it is a fairly recent phenomenon. I avoid giving my dc these things except very occasionally, and I was annoyed when my 5yo was served diet Sprite in Pizza Express, which they just brought without comment because they had run out of ordinary Sprite. (I'm not saying Sprite is healthy, btw!)

Gordy none of my 3 have fillings and they've only had Rocks. If kids clean their teeth properly,don't continuously drink acidic,sweet drinks and limit sweets their teeth will be fine. Kids don't need sweeteners to have healthy teeth.

There is more to teeth than diet though. Some children DO need to avoid sugar to have healthy teeth. Others can suck lollipops with gay abandon and not.

If you have an "unlucky toother", Rocks might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

For "lucky toothers" like me, it wont. It makes me cringe what I used to do to my teeth as a teenager. The shit I ate. I wouldn't clean my teeth. Days would go by. We were total skanks, my brother and I. 35 years old and not a single filling.

Went to the dentist recently, a new one. He praised my teeth, I said, ah yeah, I'm just lucky. He said "no, you just looked after them". Did I fook. Even now I forget to floss often (since I stopped work, used to do it religiously as paranoid about bad breath), and do hasty morning teeth clean.

I dont know. I just think we are destined to be judged (or praised undeserved) for these genetic anomolies.

Kate Moss is a genetic anomolie, after all.

(Can't spell, is that genetic?)

I have 1 super ace toother one unlucky crumble toother and one jury's out - so we avoid sugary drinks of possible

YANBU - sweeteners are one of my pet hates though I should imagine that as others have said people that do give their kids no added sugar drinks etc are just unaware rather than stupid.

One thing that I never knew before having kids was that toothpaste has sweeteners in. I had avoided all sweeteners in food and drinks for years but had unwittingly been getting my double daily dose when cleaning my teeth. I get toothpaste for me and dd in a healthfood shop where they do versions with no horrible shite in (some have no fluoride in but I always get ones that do).

Sorry tatty but you were responding to my post? Which bit? (not having a go, just a bit confuddled!).

My phone wants to correct 'tatty' to tasty which seems appropriate for the thread.

oh and I am 41 with no fillings at all and I drink coke a lot

I have excellent teeth, straight and strong and white. DH was a brace wearer for most of his childhood/teens and is so jealous. DS1 has inherited my teeth it seems, thank God. Dunno yet about DS2.

Morloth, you are confused? I am CONFUSED!!! There was something in your post that triggered my brain to think that, but reading back, I'm really not sure what!!!

It might come to me in a moment!

PS I am well tasty

Maybe I went down that path because your kids bounce off them, you dont give them (that's got to be an individual genetic profile thing like any allergy or intolerance would it not) and my drunken probing mind went off on a tangent.

Yes. That would be it.

I am loving your work tonight Tatty

I have red

Mwah x

Got it.

Diet Coke gives me a weird headache almost immediately.

Genetics are also probably the reason why one person can eat a bucketload of sugar and sit on their arse all day and stay skinny. Whereas if I eat cake for a few days and don't work out I blob straightaway.

In terms of obesity/weight gain/blobbiness I definitely think there is a genetic factor, not necessarily with just calories in calories out, but with (a) carbohydrates (sugars and complex) and how the body processes and utilises them, and (b) appetite, and how it is effected by said carbohydrate utilisation.

So yes if you overeat, you will eventually (probably) get chunky, fat, overweight or even obese, depending on other factors, but some sooner, and worse, than others, and harder, and longer, to rectify regardless of and/or in addition to/exclusion of exercise/activity.

Could I make any less sense?!?