To not understand why tons of people believe artificial sweeteners are more harmful than sugar?

[HavelockVetinari]

There is no scientific evidence to back up the various claims that it's addictive, carcinogenic...etc. Yet I'm always reading posts on social media that disparage sugar-free drinks as dangerous and harmful to health, without a shred of evidence being offered.

I do understand that some people dislike the taste (so-called 'supertasters' apparently experienced a bitter aftertaste) but that doesn't make it harmful!

I did at one time drink diet drinks, but I've since switched to the point of view it's better to eat full-fat/natural sugar, and if you're worried about the calories, have less.

I went to a Pizza Hut earlier this year and when I discovered that all drinks had artificial sweeteners, ended up drinking water. I love coke, but would rather drink water than sugar-free coke.

The BBC programme, Trust Me I'm a Doctor, did a small study where they took healthy young adults who did not normally have artificial sweeteners. One group ate food sweetened with stevia and the other group ate the artificially sweetened version where available (eg drinks, yoghurts etc). I can't remember how many exactly but several of the artificial sweetener group developed poor blood sugar control and were considered to be pre-diabetic by the end of the study. Link to an article about it from the BBC.

I boycott artificial sweeteners the same as palm oil - they both make food and drink taste of shit. Not forgetting palm oil is also responsible for the destruction of massive areas of orangutan habitat so I guess that's one good thing you could say about sweeteners.

How are artificial sweeteners listed in food and drink? Just curious as I had a drink earlier and couldn’t see anything in the ingredients but it really tasted like chemicals

I used to work with a lady who used to have 4 sweeteners in her drinks. Until her hair started falling out. Her doctor advised her it was probably the aspartamine and when she stopped it started to recover.

To this day its only partially grown back...

Thats enough for me to avoid them like the plague

Artificial sweeteners taste awful. Really chemically and quite bitter. They also give me headaches and the runs.

I would love to be able to drink the Zero stuff as it would save so many calories but I really can't stand them. I switched to Pepsi Max for a while once and had almost trained my taste buds to not hate it - and then ended up incredibly poorly as something went really odd with my blood - my white cells all but disappeared and my red cells were all mis shaped. The only thing I'd changed in my diet was sugared coke to artificially sweetened cola. I refuse to let my kids drink the stuff.

I don't like artificial sweeteners. I don't find they sweeten things though they alter the taste to one which I find vile. I do believe that in years to come, evidence will emerge, as it has with 'spread' vs butter, that sugar is a better choice. After all, over many, many years the human race has evolved to cope with sugar, butter etc, whereas it has been comparitively few years that we have been consuming these substitutes. I like a sugar on my coffee. I would rather drink it without if the only available option is artificial sweetener.

I remember the advice to swap butter with margarine. Oh those lovely trans fats!

just eat less sugar, it's not that hard
I've just figured out that over the last 3 days I have only had 2 occasions where I ate something containing added sugar (cake, and stewed fruit) and no artificial sweeteners at all, and that's slightly more than I would usually have- but I don't feel I'm suffering from it!

For years I've had people telling me to stop drinking diet coke because of my fibromyalgia and me/cfs.

AS is meant to make it all worse.

The only thing which suffers if I stop drinking it, is my caffeine intake. If someone told everyone to stop drinking coffee or tea there would be problems. I don't drink t or c and have the right to my caffeine perk.

I don't believe for a moment that AS has any adverse effect on my chronic conditions. I can make many things which don't.

@Tolleshunt - it was over year ago now. I wrote to Customer Services about it at the time and was told that, in their taste tests, there was no difference (bollocks) so, basically, like it or lump it!

They taste chemically and vile! I've never understood how people can stand them. I spend ages in supermarkets trying to find the 50/50 and avoid "no added sugar" shite like the plague.

Can people really not taste it?

I am a super taster. And they taste vile. Its a chemical taste that reminds me of the smell of the powdery flash floor cleaner my mum used to use. I avoid it as much as I can and I can always tell when they have changed a product.

I can’t take anything with even a trace of aspartame or similar, I get diarrhoea with severe cramps. I would never give a child anything containing any artificial sweetener, I don’t think enough is known.

Drinks containing artificial sweeteners taste foul. And I remember eating some M&S sugar free humbugs that turned my bowels to liquid.

All in all not a fan.

I knew a customer who was hospitalised with kidney failure, put down to her addiction to Diet Coke. She travelled a lot by car, never drank water but drank at least 6 cans, and up to 12 a day!

To be fair, 6 cans a day of anything other than water would do you damage..

The most commonly used one is Aspartame, which contains Phenylalanine.

There is an illness called PKU (Phenylketonuria) which means consuming Phenylalanine will give you brain damage.

The fact that it's now in 99% of drinks and many places are refusing to stock the rare couple that don't contain it means that many people with PKU are unable to grab a drink on the go.

I have a few family members with PKU who are finding the sugar tax a nightmare to deal with.

I'm personally allergic to aspartame, so I also have to avoid 99% of the drinks on the market too.

Diet Coke is a funny one. Only anecdotal but I know but I've known people who've had a real addiction to it. A friend of mine said giving it up was much harder than knocking the fags on the head.

I just have a general rule of thumb that the less chemicals we ingest every day the better. I'm not super careful, but it costs nothing to avoid artificial sweeteners.

Why would anyone opt for a chemical simulation over the real thing. Also I find it suspicious how the only people I know who do use artificial sweeteners are permanently obese.

Milliways I grew up with septuagenarian relatives who only drank tea all day long! Maybe the antioxidants kept them going?

Milliways- a family member who is a medic treated a woman who died from water overdose a few years ago. So even water.

I wonder if people who think it tastes vile are just used to incredibly sugary things? I mean full fat fizzy drinks/ squash have been demonised for many years - previously I can’t think of anyone in my circle who would admit to touching the stuff if not hungover- now all of a sudden half of MN is desperate to get back on the 8tsps of sugar per 300mls because nothing else tastes as good? Weird.

I am another one who hates the taste of artificial sweeteners - I would rather have less of something, or have it more infrequently, than try to get used to the taste of sweeteners.

Also, I do feel that sugar is a more natural product than artificial sweeteners, and I would rather have the more natural product. Same with butter - I think margarine and other non-dairy spreads taste disgusting, and I would rather have butter but use less of it. My GP tried to convince me that a low fat spread would be healthier, but had no answer when I asked him why something requiring industrial processes to make it, and artificial colours to make it look palatable was healthier than something I could make in my own kitchen with just one ingredient - two if you like your butter salted.

I really resent the nanny-state-ism of the sugar tax, and the way it has ruined some perfectly good drinks. Dh feels the same too - we treat ourselves to Fentimans tonic now, because it is nice and comes without sweeteners. Dh used to treat himself to a couple of bottles of Fevertree Madagascan cola each week (he doesn’t drink alcohol, so likes to have something nice to drink in the evening), but they started putting sweeteners in it and ruined it.

They taste vile and do give me headaches, I do have them in some stuff as it's impossible to avoid them.

But the way I look at it (albeit a biased view) sugar = natural, sweetener = artificial.

So I know which one I would always choose where there is a choice.

*a BASIC view

I wonder if people who think it tastes vile are just used to incredibly sugary things?

To me it's not that drinks containing sweeteners taste less sweet, but that they have a noticeably artificial taste. A kind of flat sour flavour that rests on my tongue a second or two after I've drunk it.