GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

For the last couple of years I have been using "Sweet'n Low",and wondering why I can't seem to lose the fat. Looking up several sites on the internet. I discovered that saccherine, is a coal tar deriative. Apparently the FDA has been trying to ban saccherine for years. It has been definitely been linked to causing bladder cancer.

Also, they believe that use of artificial sweetners, like saccherine which is 500 times sweeter than sugar. Tricks the mine, so that you consume more calories, because you cannot taste natural sweeteners.

They are linking diet soda to obesity.

Both my Grandparents used Sweet N Low for years and they both died of cancer. My grandfather of prostate & Bladder cancer. I've been asking my mother for years to stop using it but she refuses to. I use splenda myself and allot of people complain that the use chlorine to chemically alter Sugar to sucralose, but we use chlorine to make our water supply safe. Now for NutraSweet that will chemically change to formaldehyde at 86 degree's and when you put formaldehyde into the human body it converts it to wood alcohol. So I would say they all contain dangerous substance's but for me Sugar goes strait to weight in me, and Splenda does not pass through the cell membrane and for me it's the only way I can lose weight.

I have switched over to Splenda. Hopefully , I can purge my body of sweet'n low, so I can taste the Splenda.

Interestingly one of the girls in my class today brought a bottle of artificially sweetened 'energy drink' (accidentally - pressed the wrong button) - she couldn't get a single person from about 20 (women) to even consider taking it - it's now part of a sculpture. I hadn't realized how universally despised those drinks are.

Well I thought it was interesting anyhow

I dunno...

Sugar-free Red Bull tastes wonderful, but I have this only about once a month.

Well I am 20 yrs old now and have been using equal, splenda, sweet n low, since i was probably 10. I use it very excessively because i cant hardly taste it if i dont and i put it on everything soup, salad, coffee, burgers etc. I def cant eat sugar(long story but i have stayed away from sugar for a year and half because i used to binge and purge on sugar and well its just not worth risking a relapse with that) but ill let you all know if i end up dying from some form of cancer...because frankly if anyone would die from artificial sweetners it will be me as much as i use the stuff.

artificially sweetened energy drink? How's that work?

Isn't that a bit of an oxymoron? Seems those twenty women knew something that the marketing people making the drink didn't know.

It has been six months since I gave up my 2-3 a-day Diet Mountain Dew habit. At the same time, I also gave up artificial sweeteners and High Fructose Corn Syrup. I have let some real sugar back into the diet however, in items like Maple Syrup and the occasional "Blue Sky" brand cola. (Heck, Bacardi needs the sugar!) In breads, I seek out honey sweetened products.

I buy into the theory that our bodies, especially our taste buds and brains adopt the taste and metabolic processes for "perceived" sweetness. The implication here is to eat real food and focus on portion control. It's funny how much "Frankenfood" I have left on the shelf after a scan of the ingredients list. Restaurants are challenging, though they usually have an iced tea option instead of either HFCS or Nutrisweet.

Believe me, I am not righteous about this, these are my choices, mine alone. I slip up and don't beat myself up. I still choose Jose Cuerevo on occasion! And of course, the bounty of the grape is still on my daily table. I would be lying if I said any of this resulted in serious weight loss, but darn, I do feel good.

CiCi

Looks like that it is Brain Cancer for me. Artificial Sweetners are supposed to cause this? I have consumed my share of diet coke.

I understand your frustration. I gave up High Fructose Corn Syrup about a year and a half ago because of health concerns and in hopes of loosing weight. However, I adopted at the time drinks sweetened with real sugar instead (very hard to find now-a-days). I was drinking Mexican Coke and home-mixed Koolade. Then, after SRS, it became EXTREMELY difficult to control my weight. My weight shot up about seven pounds in the first two or three weeks after surgery, and I've been trying to beat it down ever since. Now I've given up all sweetened drinks and drink water with every meal, or perhaps milk at breakfast. Still no luck. They have doctors and nutritionists on TV who say that sugary drinks are making us fat. Well, in my experience, the lack of sugary drinks sure ain't making me thin.

For me personally, I never developed a taste for any of the artificial sweeteners. Every one I've tried has left an unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth that for me made the calorie savings not worth it. I kind of view that as the sweetener's saving grace. Based on the health concerns people have described here, I'm glad they have that aftertaste to help keep me from succumbing to the temptation and drinking them.

I'm a wild woman, so YMMV. Once, I ate a sandwich and jumped right in the pool, no 30 minute wait for me. Another night I got all crazy and took the tags off all my mattresses.

I eat a healthy diet, lots of fruit and veggies, take my vitamins, exercise most days, and I don’t drink more than 5 alcoholic beverages a week. I also drink Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi or Crystal Light all the time. They can’t be any worse than the innumerable other products the FDA claims are fine for us to consume. Unless you have your own organic farm, good luck avoiding all the chemicals that get put into the food supply. I do agree with everyone about how awful HFCS is.

BTW, a sugar free energy drink will have tons of caffeine, and whatever “proprietary energy mix” they throw in, usually taurine, insotol, L-carnitine, and a bunch of other mumbo jumbo. Big energy rush from the caffeine, not to mention the appetite suppressant effect, and then a massive crash.

Fructose is metabolized quickly by the liver, but leads to a very slow rise in blood glucose. It is very low on the gylcemic index.

I got so used to diet drinks that I can't drink a regular soda or anything with sugar now. Leaves a bitter, funny after taste in my mouth and gives me cotton tongue. Weird, huh? (BTW isn't Fructose sugar too?)

Yes, and harder to metabolize than glucose. In general, five-carbon sugars (like fructose) follow a longer pathway than six-carbon sugars (like glucose).

Sucrose (sugar from sugarcane, the white or brown stuff) is a hybrid molecule of both, fructose and glucose.

I'd avoid any drink high in fructose. In fruits it's safe.

In our modern world, every food likely has potentially dangerous chemicals or organisms.
The safest thing to do is to not eat.

If you want to get heavy then eat foods with grease and artificial additives or ingredients. If you want to stay slim and trim eat fresh vegetables either raw or steamed and avoid animal meats except occasionally. Don't even bother reading labels because if its frozen, boxed, shrink wrapped or packaged in any sort of plastic its got bad stuff in it although once in a great while you can find pure juices without additives. And don't believe for one minute that any deep fried foods of any sort are not fattening.

You are welcome to disagree.

I watched a program on tv once about 10 years ago linking the consumption of artificial sweetners(they were preliminary findings) to weight gain/obesity,and how they(artificial sweeteners)tricked the mind into thinking that there were actual calories being consumed when there wasn't,leading to the body reacting by overeating after consuming a product that was artificially sweetened.That's not good!.

Over the years I've observed lots of relatives that were trying to control/lose weight actually have a harder time doing so after adding artificially flavored products to they're diet,and they all ended up gaining weight instead!

Every artificial sweetener containing product that I've ever tryed(just out of curiosity)has made me sick to my stomach after consuming it,and I mean SICK,like being on the verge of throwing up.The last time that I injested anything containing an artifcial sweetener was about 3 years ago when I stopped at the gas station for some gas and purchased a diet can of pop by mistake.I didn't notice it until I drank about half the can and started feeling really nauseated and sick to my stomach.

I've also noticed that the relatives of mine that eat the fastest and don't chew they're food very well also seem to have the most issues as far as controlling/losing weight is concerned.I've always been an extremely slow eater my whole life,and guess what?I've never had any weight problems!.Is this the key to losing/controling your weight?Maybe.It seems to have worked in my case at least.

Here's an article that talks about artificial sweeteners/food viscosity and the possible link to being overweight and not being able to control the amount of food one consumes....

http://thyroid.about.com/b/2004/07/08/ar...oss-efforts.htm

If ya wanna lose weight, get your jaw wired shut and/or chopped up.
10 pounds and counting.

That works!

The way I see it you have two options: you could do as you folks seem to suggest and torture yourself trying to live forever only to probably die by something unforeseen or completely out of your control or you could have a good time poisoning yourself. Call me crazy but I think I'm going to keep my artificially colored and flavored bacon burger.

Besides, a lot of these scares on artificial food additives are completely debased from reality. Yes, there are studies that show that they are poisonous to a degree. Everything is poisonous to a degree. People assume that just because it's artificially synthesized that it must be bad for you; after all, it is a "chemical." People forget that *all* of your food is made up of of chemicals, many of which can be quite poisonous when raised to the proper dosage.

In other words, chill out and have a Diet Coke. Compared to what actual sugars do to your body artificial sweeteners are a veritable panacea.

Losing weight is simple:
calories consumed<calories expended

Being healthy is different. Not only does it require a reasonable diet, but exercise plays a huge role as well. A simple way to eat a healthy diet is to use the "caveman" rule: If a caveman could find it and eat it, then it's probably good. Lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and eggs, washed down with water.

Simple, too bad simple doesn't necessarily mean easy. I mostly follow my own advice, expect for the ice cream I eat every night, and a few other indulgences.