The Best Artificial Sweetener

There are many different artificial sweeteners on the market and all of them have their own pros and cons. Most people only see the cons side of the equation.

The pro is pretty simple, they taste sweet without adding any calories. The con side isn’t so obvious. There is much fear and debate about artificial sweeteners. Some people think they cause everything from cancer to dementia and that they’re down right poison.

Other people happily trade the potential unknown health risks for the low calorie option they provide.

From what I can tell the science isn’t 100% definitive on exactly what the potential effects are of using one artificial sweetener over another for the long term.

So I take a bit of a moderate approach.

For starters there are multiple artificial sweeteners that chemically are quite different from each other and thus have different effects.

You’ll likely find one or two that seem to work for you palate better than the others. The common ones are sucralose, acesulfame potassium, aspartame, saccharin, and a relative new comer called Stevia.

Stevia seems to be the most benign with minimal side effects and the taste isn’t overwhelming. Some research is even being done on it’s potential health promoting effects when used as a sugar substitute.

But even with something as promising as stevia you can eventually get bored or tired of the taste and want something else.

I suggest using Stevia as your go-to artificial sweetener when you have to use one. You can also mix the others in when you don’t have access to Stevia, or you happen to only have the others available.

Don’t rely too heavily on artificial sweeteners in general as learning to cook and shop for food items with more whole natural ingredients will always serve your gut health and weight loss better.

Bottom line, sweeteners can help you satisfy a sweet tooth without adding the calories of sugar. Stevia is my preferred choice. The other sweeteners are ok to have once in a while but try whenever you can to eat whole food that is naturally sweetened.