My take? Zero-calorie sweeteners have no practical reason to exist. It is a marketer's pursuit to make us consume food in ever vaster quantities while being gui

My take? Zero-calorie sweeteners have no practical reason to exist. It is a marketer's pursuit to make us consume food in ever vaster quantities while being guilt free. What we should be doing is reducing our sugar intake given that most of us are no longer living on the edge of caloric survival. But that's hard, and not doing it comes with guilt and health issues. So instead we create a chemical that provides all the pleasure of eating with none of the caloric benefits. Calorie-free food is pure hedonism. Not bad in and of itself, but to the extent we in the developed world have taken it, something to be just a little bit ashamed of.