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I wonder if the similar molecule Xylitol has the same problem. It seems like so many artificial sweeteners have dangerous health effects, I don't trust any of t

I wonder if the similar molecule Xylitol has the same problem. It seems like so many artificial sweeteners have dangerous health effects, I don't trust any of them. Unless you're diabetic or something, regular sugar seems to be the healthiest choice (in moderation!)

aydyn 1y ago
Regular sugar is very bad for you in a modern diet as its essentially extra calories that are not compensated by satiety. Why prefer something that you know is definitely bad for you over something that maybe is but more likely benign?
- hedora 1y ago
  Studies have shown artificial (and non-nutritional organic) sweeteners are much worse than sugar for decades. For instance, they disrupt your metabolism, so equivalently sweet amounts of sweeteners cause more weight gain than sugar. (Due to increased hunger vs. eating nothing, decreased metabolism and decreased calorie burn.) The study in the article isn’t surprising at all. Links between nutrisweet and migraine headaches have been well understood for a long time. It’s not surprising other similar chemicals have similar negative side effects. There’s no valid reason to use artificial sweeteners (other than diabetes, but even then, gaining weight from the sweeteners is a problem if the diabetes is weight related.)
  - aydyn 1y ago
    Thats wrong. You can find any individual study to support nearly any conclusion you want. The most credible meta analyses (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240046429 https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240046429) only show positive or null effects compared to equivalent sugar amounts.
  - Hugsun 1y ago
    I was under the impression that this is not the case. Aspartame has been studied a lot and not found to be harmful.
    - datameta 1y ago
      Aspartame is linked to anxiety.
      - TeMPOraL 1y ago
        Direction of causation would be very relevant here. Sugar is still the cultural default; artificial sweeteners are something you explicitly choose due to health concerns (worried about being or becoming diabetic, or overweight, or worried about sugar being unhealthy in general, or about the mood/motivation angle, etc.). I imagine becoming overweight itself is linked to anxiety both ways, as eating or snacking is a common reaction to stress, a way to relieve it in the moment.
        opan 1y ago
        >Sugar is still the cultural default; artificial sweeteners are something you explicitly choose due to health concerns If only. Check the ingredients (usually near the bottom) of some energy drinks some time. Monster, NOS, AMP, half of the Rockstar flavors, Bang, and so on will add sucralose to the normal versions with sugar or HFCS in them. It's hard to find one without artificial sweeteners. This is especially crazy as Monster already has their sugar-free (Ultra?) line. They're forcing normal people to consume sucralose, and it's awful. Luckily Red Bull seems fine for now (Blueberry flavor is really good). Guru in its original flavor only also has no sucralose, but I think all the other flavors have it. I first noticed this trend one of the times they brought back Mtn Dew Game Fuel and it tasted disgusting. Now I'm scared of any new drink, or that they'll ruin one I like. Also, I think water is fine, caffeine pills are fine, I know some people are against energy drinks, but I don't think that's a reason to ruin them (preempting replies saying not to drink them at all). I've been drinking black coffee all week but I still have some Blueberry Red Bull in my fridge for when I feel like it.
        illiac786 1y ago
        Is it the taste of sucralose which is ruining the drink or do you feel sucralose makes an otherwise healthy drink like red bull unhealthy? (Full disclosure: I consider red bull very high risk of being unhealthy, considering the stuff they put in, the artificial flavours, etc. – sucralose is a mere detail to me)
  - const_cast 1y ago
    > Studies have shown artificial (and non-nutritional organic) sweeteners are much worse than sugar for decades. What? No they haven't. This is just straight-up misinformation. Aspartame is completely safe to consume. It's not carcinogenic, it doesn't mess up your metabolism, it doesn't do anything. At worst, it can cause some people stomach upset in large quantities. We can't just lie and make things up because they sound intuitively true. Zero-calorie sweeteners sound too good to be true, sure. That doesn't mean they actually are, that's not science. > There’s no valid reason to use artificial sweeteners (other than diabetes, but even then, gaining weight from the sweeteners is a problem if the diabetes is weight related.) "There's no valid reason to use artificial sweeteners" -> proceeds to list valid reasons. Yes, people use these for weight control because they're very effective and safe. Also: it's impossible to gain weight from artificial sweeteners like Aspartame. There's no calories in them, what would make you gain weight?
    - hedora 1y ago
      https://www.healthline.com/health/aspartame-side-effects#side-effects https://www.healthline.com/health/aspartame-side-effects#sid... I know multiple people that have had problems on the "other" list, and a few people have mentioned their own problems on this list. According to the summary, the studies showing those side effects are universally on the list due to lack of funding on follow ups, not due to the effects disappearing when the studies were repeated with larger sample sizes. Witholding funding and spamming inconclusive results is a common playbook for industries that are trying to slow down scientific consensus. The tobacco industry did the same thing to get an extra 50-100 years of "cigarrettes are probably good for you" to be the public consensus, despite scientists calling for additional study.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        Are you aware you've sent a link of side-effects, including interactions with medicine? That doesn't mean a substance is unsafe, all substances, including water, have side-effects. I've never known anyone to have any side effects from aspartame. I've never known anyone who has known anyone who has had side-effects from aspartame. > "cigarettes are probably good for you" The difference is Tobacco is a Group 1 Carcinogen - definitely carcinogenic. Along with processed red meat and alcohol. Red meat is group 2B, possibly carcinogenic. This is also where Aspartame resides. Which means there are SOME studies showing carcinogenic effects, and other's which do not. Please note that the studies which showed carcinogenic effects in Aspartame used many hundreds or thousands of times the dose found in human food and beverage. The great thing about Aspartame is that it's not actually zero calorie - it's just very potent, so we put next to nothing in our food and beverage. For all intents and purposes, Aspartame is completely safe. When compared to sugar, Aspartame is much, much safer. I mean, it's not even close.
- abenga 1y ago
  "Too many calories" is a simpler problem to solve: increase physical activity, take less sugar, or take sugar less frequently. The signal to watch out for to tell that you are taking too much (increasing weight) is straightforward as well. The possible artificial sweetener issues implied by the article ("may be poison") are ultra scary.
  - aydyn 1y ago
    Easier to understand does not mean simpler to solve. 40% of the U.S. is overweight, 11% are diabetic, etc etc. There is no such magnitude of a problem due to erythritol or artificial sweeteners. If "too many calories" were easy to solve we would not have an epidemic of it.
    - uncircle 1y ago
      Sweeteners don’t solve the obesity epidemic, they make it worse. Bodies are complex systems with feedback, you cannot focus only on the amount of calories. If one is overweight, and keep reinforcing their dietary patterns by eating sweet food, caloric or not, they’re never gonna adapt to healthy eating which is barely sweet if at all. I’m speaking from an holistic point of view; the American idea of healthy food is twisted by commercial interests and only calories seem to count. Also, you forget that sweeteners still cause an insulin release and some research shows that their effect on metabolism might be even worse than sugar itself because, being zero calories, they do not contribute to the sense of “caloric satiety,” so for the same volume of food your body has released more insulin. It’s convenient for companies to claim sweeteners are safe and sugar is the devil, but consumers should take such a claim with a grain of salt. There is no silver bullet, and dietary sciences is a field of bad science and enormous commercial incentives to lie. A good rule of thumb is whatever we have consumed for thousands of years is likely not that bad. Sugar in quantities should be avoided, but elsewhere you have claimed that it is bad for you and I have to disagree with such hyperbole, compared to something we’ve eaten for less than 50 years created by food lobbies.
    - Propelloni 1y ago
      No, the GP is correct. The solution is simple. Calculate your daily passive calorie requirement, take in less calories and/or up active calorie requirement. Simple. Now, implementing this is hard or maybe impossible for many individuals, I'm not denying this. The solution is simple, but for some it is not easy to implement.
- srean 1y ago
  Gee, I don't know if this artificial chemical (that no other species consumes) is toxic. Let me consume it everyday. Radium, too was deemed safe to suck on. Thalidomide, perfectly safe. Hormone replacement therapy, perfectly safe... The safety of these (Thalidomide, HRT) were also backed by studies. I find safety studies very suspect unless there's years of experience, especially if there is money to be made by someone. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it -- Upton Sinclair
  - aydyn 1y ago
    Non sequitur. Lots of studies examining the toxicity of artificial sweetners. The body of evidence shows null distribution.
    - lithocarpus 1y ago
      "lots of studies" also showed other things like smoking were ok once upon a time. The few times I've looked in depth at the studies about the safety of a particular thing, I have found that each study has at least one obvious major flaw that makes the study not necessarily support the conclusion. You could have 10 such studies or 100 and say that lots of studies show that X is safe or Y is dangerous, and the conclusion could be wrong. This especially common when there's a financial incentive for the people doing or controlling the study to get the result they want, which there usually is. Or for studies that don't get the desired result to not be published.
      - theshackleford 1y ago
        > "lots of studies" also showed other things like smoking were ok once upon a time. Such as?
        autoexec 1y ago
        https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/003335490512000215 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/003335490512000215
- konart 1y ago
  >Regular sugar is very bad for you No it is not. The overwhelming quantites are bad. But this applies to almost any food.
  - dazc 1y ago
    This like saying alcohol isn't bad for you.
    - sailingparrot 1y ago
      There is no dosage where alcohol is beneficial/useful to your body. Just a dosage where its detrimental effect is somewhat minimal. There is definitely a healthy/beneficial/useful dosage of sugar. Especially while exercising, sugar is not stored and is used as litteral fuel by the body.
      - lithocarpus 1y ago
        I'd argue that processed or refined or concentrated sugar (not talking about berries or vegetables) is similar to alcohol in being a net negative impact on the body in 99% of cases. Sure if you are otherwise starving then it may have a benefit. But if you trade calories from some real food for calories from sugar, you're worse off.
      - illiac786 1y ago
        What’s the beneficial dosage of refined sugar?
    - konart 1y ago
      It isn't. Everything depends on quantity and quality. Kefir and kvass - do have alcohol for example. Low ammounts but it is there. Not to mention dry red wine and such. Drink a bottle day a you will have problems. Drink 100ml every now and then and you will be the same as before.
  - aydyn 1y ago
    That is why I conditioned the claim with the qualifier "in a modern diet". To a starving child in a impoverished nation? Sugar would be great. Context is important.
- lm28469 1y ago
  If your taste buds aren't completely fried by years of abuse you really can't eat any significant amount of sugar without being disgusted. More and more often I find some types of apples too sweet for my taste to the point I barely can finish them.
  - nwienert 1y ago
    GLP-1 drugs reset this incredibly quickly, luckily.
    - lithocarpus 1y ago
      That's good, and I hope that one can get off glp 1 quickly too. For anyone with the discipline I'd highly recommend doing it the natural way but if one really can't then I might consider that option. There aren't any really long term studies of it to show what other effects it might have, though.
      - nwienert 1y ago
        Easy to get off. I have a feeling they are actually life extension drugs, even for normal weight people. Just reading many studies and some intuition from taking them (and not being much over).
    - lm28469 1y ago
      If you don't change the underlying habits it simply doesn't work, like yo-yo diets, like antidepressant, it only works if you actually want help and put in the work, if you just take it as a magic pill you will for sure fail again
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  The fallacy of bothsidesism without quantitative evidence. People will keep ostentatiously promoting "raw" honey and "raw" sugar with RFK gusto.
- elevaet 1y ago
  If you're asking me personally, it's because I don't have any problems with eating too much sugar so I would never want to introduce an artificial sweetener into my diet when it carries potential strange health risks. I think people get hung up on finding sugar substitutes when the root is eating sweet things constantly. You don't have to eat and drink sweet all the time. Many modern diets (not just n. Amer) are totally overindexed on sweetness. Drink water, eat good foods, enjoy a bit of jam on your toast or whatever here and there and get lots of exercise and you'll be fine. You don't need aspartame and xylitol and stevia to be healthy.
  - rurp 1y ago
    I second this, and would add that taste buds are more elastic than many assume. Drinking less sweet drinks can be underwhelming at first but your tastes do adjust fairly quickly and can often get to the point where mildly or unsweetened drinks taste as good or even better than the sugary stuff does, and the stuff that used to taste normal will be too sweet. Drinks like tea and coffee have a lot of flavor that that comes out without so much sugar. One issue is that if you're buying drinks there are very few intermediate options. I don't mind a little sugar but if I'm traveling and stop at a store the drink options are usually 97% super sweet (artificial or otherwise) and 3% zero sweetness, with nothing in between.
    - agos 1y ago
      Stores usually have water though
- jonasft 1y ago
  Regular sugar isn’t bad for you in and of itself, it’s just extra calories as you say. Consuming it in large quantities can be bad though, in the sense that you can become obese with all the health risks that involves.
ShakataGaNai 1y ago
Monk Fruit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraitia_grosvenorii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraitia_grosvenorii
- Nursie 1y ago
  It's not terrible, I've used it in hot drinks (fruit green teas) to give some sweetness. Doesn't immediately taste horrific like Stevia.... I'm glad the fashion for shoving that in everything has passed.
- xtracto 1y ago
  I am partial to Allulose [1] and Stevia [2]. A lot of people find their taste bad, but I've grown used to them, so much that I don't "taste" them anymore. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/allulose-in-human-diet-the-knowns-and-the-unknowns/74020152A1262DF4D7942A4DB54B6E37 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.2904 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.2904
mock-possum 1y ago
Last I checked, xylitol tastes sweet but is actually fairly lethal to plaque-causing bacteria… on the other hand, it’s also a laxative. Oh also it’s super lethal for dogs. I only chew gum if it has xylitol in it.
- card_zero 1y ago
  For all three reasons? The implied lifestyle delights me.
deepnet 1y ago
Xylitol is a sugar from birch tree sap.

aydyn 1y ago

Regular sugar is very bad for you in a modern diet as its essentially extra calories that are not compensated by satiety. Why prefer something that you know is definitely bad for you over something that maybe is but more likely benign?

hedora 1y ago
Studies have shown artificial (and non-nutritional organic) sweeteners are much worse than sugar for decades. For instance, they disrupt your metabolism, so equivalently sweet amounts of sweeteners cause more weight gain than sugar. (Due to increased hunger vs. eating nothing, decreased metabolism and decreased calorie burn.) The study in the article isn’t surprising at all. Links between nutrisweet and migraine headaches have been well understood for a long time. It’s not surprising other similar chemicals have similar negative side effects. There’s no valid reason to use artificial sweeteners (other than diabetes, but even then, gaining weight from the sweeteners is a problem if the diabetes is weight related.)
- aydyn 1y ago
  Thats wrong. You can find any individual study to support nearly any conclusion you want. The most credible meta analyses (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240046429 https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240046429) only show positive or null effects compared to equivalent sugar amounts.
- Hugsun 1y ago
  I was under the impression that this is not the case. Aspartame has been studied a lot and not found to be harmful.
  - datameta 1y ago
    Aspartame is linked to anxiety.
    - TeMPOraL 1y ago
      Direction of causation would be very relevant here. Sugar is still the cultural default; artificial sweeteners are something you explicitly choose due to health concerns (worried about being or becoming diabetic, or overweight, or worried about sugar being unhealthy in general, or about the mood/motivation angle, etc.). I imagine becoming overweight itself is linked to anxiety both ways, as eating or snacking is a common reaction to stress, a way to relieve it in the moment.
      - opan 1y ago
        >Sugar is still the cultural default; artificial sweeteners are something you explicitly choose due to health concerns If only. Check the ingredients (usually near the bottom) of some energy drinks some time. Monster, NOS, AMP, half of the Rockstar flavors, Bang, and so on will add sucralose to the normal versions with sugar or HFCS in them. It's hard to find one without artificial sweeteners. This is especially crazy as Monster already has their sugar-free (Ultra?) line. They're forcing normal people to consume sucralose, and it's awful. Luckily Red Bull seems fine for now (Blueberry flavor is really good). Guru in its original flavor only also has no sucralose, but I think all the other flavors have it. I first noticed this trend one of the times they brought back Mtn Dew Game Fuel and it tasted disgusting. Now I'm scared of any new drink, or that they'll ruin one I like. Also, I think water is fine, caffeine pills are fine, I know some people are against energy drinks, but I don't think that's a reason to ruin them (preempting replies saying not to drink them at all). I've been drinking black coffee all week but I still have some Blueberry Red Bull in my fridge for when I feel like it.
        illiac786 1y ago
        Is it the taste of sucralose which is ruining the drink or do you feel sucralose makes an otherwise healthy drink like red bull unhealthy? (Full disclosure: I consider red bull very high risk of being unhealthy, considering the stuff they put in, the artificial flavours, etc. – sucralose is a mere detail to me)
- const_cast 1y ago
  > Studies have shown artificial (and non-nutritional organic) sweeteners are much worse than sugar for decades. What? No they haven't. This is just straight-up misinformation. Aspartame is completely safe to consume. It's not carcinogenic, it doesn't mess up your metabolism, it doesn't do anything. At worst, it can cause some people stomach upset in large quantities. We can't just lie and make things up because they sound intuitively true. Zero-calorie sweeteners sound too good to be true, sure. That doesn't mean they actually are, that's not science. > There’s no valid reason to use artificial sweeteners (other than diabetes, but even then, gaining weight from the sweeteners is a problem if the diabetes is weight related.) "There's no valid reason to use artificial sweeteners" -> proceeds to list valid reasons. Yes, people use these for weight control because they're very effective and safe. Also: it's impossible to gain weight from artificial sweeteners like Aspartame. There's no calories in them, what would make you gain weight?
  - hedora 1y ago
    https://www.healthline.com/health/aspartame-side-effects#side-effects https://www.healthline.com/health/aspartame-side-effects#sid... I know multiple people that have had problems on the "other" list, and a few people have mentioned their own problems on this list. According to the summary, the studies showing those side effects are universally on the list due to lack of funding on follow ups, not due to the effects disappearing when the studies were repeated with larger sample sizes. Witholding funding and spamming inconclusive results is a common playbook for industries that are trying to slow down scientific consensus. The tobacco industry did the same thing to get an extra 50-100 years of "cigarrettes are probably good for you" to be the public consensus, despite scientists calling for additional study.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      Are you aware you've sent a link of side-effects, including interactions with medicine? That doesn't mean a substance is unsafe, all substances, including water, have side-effects. I've never known anyone to have any side effects from aspartame. I've never known anyone who has known anyone who has had side-effects from aspartame. > "cigarettes are probably good for you" The difference is Tobacco is a Group 1 Carcinogen - definitely carcinogenic. Along with processed red meat and alcohol. Red meat is group 2B, possibly carcinogenic. This is also where Aspartame resides. Which means there are SOME studies showing carcinogenic effects, and other's which do not. Please note that the studies which showed carcinogenic effects in Aspartame used many hundreds or thousands of times the dose found in human food and beverage. The great thing about Aspartame is that it's not actually zero calorie - it's just very potent, so we put next to nothing in our food and beverage. For all intents and purposes, Aspartame is completely safe. When compared to sugar, Aspartame is much, much safer. I mean, it's not even close.
abenga 1y ago
"Too many calories" is a simpler problem to solve: increase physical activity, take less sugar, or take sugar less frequently. The signal to watch out for to tell that you are taking too much (increasing weight) is straightforward as well. The possible artificial sweetener issues implied by the article ("may be poison") are ultra scary.
- aydyn 1y ago
  Easier to understand does not mean simpler to solve. 40% of the U.S. is overweight, 11% are diabetic, etc etc. There is no such magnitude of a problem due to erythritol or artificial sweeteners. If "too many calories" were easy to solve we would not have an epidemic of it.
  - uncircle 1y ago
    Sweeteners don’t solve the obesity epidemic, they make it worse. Bodies are complex systems with feedback, you cannot focus only on the amount of calories. If one is overweight, and keep reinforcing their dietary patterns by eating sweet food, caloric or not, they’re never gonna adapt to healthy eating which is barely sweet if at all. I’m speaking from an holistic point of view; the American idea of healthy food is twisted by commercial interests and only calories seem to count. Also, you forget that sweeteners still cause an insulin release and some research shows that their effect on metabolism might be even worse than sugar itself because, being zero calories, they do not contribute to the sense of “caloric satiety,” so for the same volume of food your body has released more insulin. It’s convenient for companies to claim sweeteners are safe and sugar is the devil, but consumers should take such a claim with a grain of salt. There is no silver bullet, and dietary sciences is a field of bad science and enormous commercial incentives to lie. A good rule of thumb is whatever we have consumed for thousands of years is likely not that bad. Sugar in quantities should be avoided, but elsewhere you have claimed that it is bad for you and I have to disagree with such hyperbole, compared to something we’ve eaten for less than 50 years created by food lobbies.
  - Propelloni 1y ago
    No, the GP is correct. The solution is simple. Calculate your daily passive calorie requirement, take in less calories and/or up active calorie requirement. Simple. Now, implementing this is hard or maybe impossible for many individuals, I'm not denying this. The solution is simple, but for some it is not easy to implement.
srean 1y ago
Gee, I don't know if this artificial chemical (that no other species consumes) is toxic. Let me consume it everyday. Radium, too was deemed safe to suck on. Thalidomide, perfectly safe. Hormone replacement therapy, perfectly safe... The safety of these (Thalidomide, HRT) were also backed by studies. I find safety studies very suspect unless there's years of experience, especially if there is money to be made by someone. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it -- Upton Sinclair
- aydyn 1y ago
  Non sequitur. Lots of studies examining the toxicity of artificial sweetners. The body of evidence shows null distribution.
  - lithocarpus 1y ago
    "lots of studies" also showed other things like smoking were ok once upon a time. The few times I've looked in depth at the studies about the safety of a particular thing, I have found that each study has at least one obvious major flaw that makes the study not necessarily support the conclusion. You could have 10 such studies or 100 and say that lots of studies show that X is safe or Y is dangerous, and the conclusion could be wrong. This especially common when there's a financial incentive for the people doing or controlling the study to get the result they want, which there usually is. Or for studies that don't get the desired result to not be published.
    - theshackleford 1y ago
      > "lots of studies" also showed other things like smoking were ok once upon a time. Such as?
      - autoexec 1y ago
        https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/003335490512000215 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/003335490512000215
konart 1y ago
>Regular sugar is very bad for you No it is not. The overwhelming quantites are bad. But this applies to almost any food.
- dazc 1y ago
  This like saying alcohol isn't bad for you.
  - sailingparrot 1y ago
    There is no dosage where alcohol is beneficial/useful to your body. Just a dosage where its detrimental effect is somewhat minimal. There is definitely a healthy/beneficial/useful dosage of sugar. Especially while exercising, sugar is not stored and is used as litteral fuel by the body.
    - lithocarpus 1y ago
      I'd argue that processed or refined or concentrated sugar (not talking about berries or vegetables) is similar to alcohol in being a net negative impact on the body in 99% of cases. Sure if you are otherwise starving then it may have a benefit. But if you trade calories from some real food for calories from sugar, you're worse off.
    - illiac786 1y ago
      What’s the beneficial dosage of refined sugar?
  - konart 1y ago
    It isn't. Everything depends on quantity and quality. Kefir and kvass - do have alcohol for example. Low ammounts but it is there. Not to mention dry red wine and such. Drink a bottle day a you will have problems. Drink 100ml every now and then and you will be the same as before.
- aydyn 1y ago
  That is why I conditioned the claim with the qualifier "in a modern diet". To a starving child in a impoverished nation? Sugar would be great. Context is important.
lm28469 1y ago
If your taste buds aren't completely fried by years of abuse you really can't eat any significant amount of sugar without being disgusted. More and more often I find some types of apples too sweet for my taste to the point I barely can finish them.
- nwienert 1y ago
  GLP-1 drugs reset this incredibly quickly, luckily.
  - lithocarpus 1y ago
    That's good, and I hope that one can get off glp 1 quickly too. For anyone with the discipline I'd highly recommend doing it the natural way but if one really can't then I might consider that option. There aren't any really long term studies of it to show what other effects it might have, though.
    - nwienert 1y ago
      Easy to get off. I have a feeling they are actually life extension drugs, even for normal weight people. Just reading many studies and some intuition from taking them (and not being much over).
  - lm28469 1y ago
    If you don't change the underlying habits it simply doesn't work, like yo-yo diets, like antidepressant, it only works if you actually want help and put in the work, if you just take it as a magic pill you will for sure fail again
burnt-resistor 1y ago
The fallacy of bothsidesism without quantitative evidence. People will keep ostentatiously promoting "raw" honey and "raw" sugar with RFK gusto.
elevaet 1y ago
If you're asking me personally, it's because I don't have any problems with eating too much sugar so I would never want to introduce an artificial sweetener into my diet when it carries potential strange health risks. I think people get hung up on finding sugar substitutes when the root is eating sweet things constantly. You don't have to eat and drink sweet all the time. Many modern diets (not just n. Amer) are totally overindexed on sweetness. Drink water, eat good foods, enjoy a bit of jam on your toast or whatever here and there and get lots of exercise and you'll be fine. You don't need aspartame and xylitol and stevia to be healthy.
- rurp 1y ago
  I second this, and would add that taste buds are more elastic than many assume. Drinking less sweet drinks can be underwhelming at first but your tastes do adjust fairly quickly and can often get to the point where mildly or unsweetened drinks taste as good or even better than the sugary stuff does, and the stuff that used to taste normal will be too sweet. Drinks like tea and coffee have a lot of flavor that that comes out without so much sugar. One issue is that if you're buying drinks there are very few intermediate options. I don't mind a little sugar but if I'm traveling and stop at a store the drink options are usually 97% super sweet (artificial or otherwise) and 3% zero sweetness, with nothing in between.
  - agos 1y ago
    Stores usually have water though
jonasft 1y ago
Regular sugar isn’t bad for you in and of itself, it’s just extra calories as you say. Consuming it in large quantities can be bad though, in the sense that you can become obese with all the health risks that involves.

ShakataGaNai 1y ago

Monk Fruit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraitia_grosvenorii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraitia_grosvenorii

Nursie 1y ago
It's not terrible, I've used it in hot drinks (fruit green teas) to give some sweetness. Doesn't immediately taste horrific like Stevia.... I'm glad the fashion for shoving that in everything has passed.
xtracto 1y ago
I am partial to Allulose [1] and Stevia [2]. A lot of people find their taste bad, but I've grown used to them, so much that I don't "taste" them anymore. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/allulose-in-human-diet-the-knowns-and-the-unknowns/74020152A1262DF4D7942A4DB54B6E37 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.2904 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.2904

mock-possum 1y ago

Last I checked, xylitol tastes sweet but is actually fairly lethal to plaque-causing bacteria… on the other hand, it’s also a laxative. Oh also it’s super lethal for dogs. I only chew gum if it has xylitol in it.

card_zero 1y ago
For all three reasons? The implied lifestyle delights me.

deepnet 1y ago

Xylitol is a sugar from birch tree sap.