Sugar Substitutes

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Do You Let Your Kids Have Sugar Substitutes?

This question comes from ohhaimom in the Mommy Club group.

This question comes from ohhaimom in the Mommy Club group.

Last weekend I was making fresh squeezed lemonade with my mother-in-law and after 30 minutes of intensive lemon squeezing she asked if we should use Splenda or sugar. I was shocked by the idea of adding anything other than sugar or honey to the organic mixture we'd concocted, but she padded her question with a, "well, since it's for the kids we should probably use the natural stuff," but it got me thinking about whether or not other moms use sugar substitutes to keep their kids from jumping off the walls, or consuming too much sugar. I'm not talking about filling their bottles with Diet Coke, but restricting sugar intake with man made sweeteners. What do you dish out by the spoonful?

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what's the deal with

What's the Deal With: Sugar Substitutes

I went out for breakfast the other day and on the table sat the cute little container of sugar packets.

I went out for breakfast the other day and on the table sat the cute little container of sugar packets. I'm into the real stuff, so I always choose Sugar in the Raw (it has more nutrients than white sugar), but when I took a closer look, I saw at least 4 other colored packets in there.

Are these sugar substitutes really better for you? Is there some benefit to stirring them into your coffee instead of real sugar?

Basically, Equal, Splenda, and Sweet 'n Low all contain zero calories, fat, sodium, cholesterol, and protein. They contain less than 1g of carbs, so people trying to omit calories and carbs from their diet love these little packets.

OK, sounds like it's too good to be true, so here comes the million dollar question: Are these sugar substitutes safe? The truth is, we just don't know yet. There are no long-term studies of the side effects of artificial sweeteners in humans. The makers of these products did their own short-term studies on rodents and the results showed shrunken thymus glands as well as enlarged livers and kidneys. Since these tests weren't conducted on humans, the FDA decided that the results they were not conclusive. Hmmm.

Want to know about the side effects in humans? Then read more