In your attempt to reduce sugar in your diet, you may be thinking that sugar substitutes and sugar-free foods and beverages are a healthier alternative. Makes sense as they add virtually no calories and you only need a small amount to give you the desired sweetness you are after. Unfortunately, although this seems like a good thing, they are not all they are cracked up to be. In fact, aspartame and sucralose, the two main sweeteners used in sugar-free foods and beverages and sold separately as packaged sugar substitutes, actually come with a set of health problems that are much worse than what sugar can cause.
In addition, studies show that artificial sweeteners can cause you to crave more sugar. They retrain your taste buds to need more and more sweetness. Also, they don't satiate you the way real foods do so you end up feeling less satisfied and more prone to eating and drinking more, resulting in weight gain, not weight loss. Side effects from artificial sweeteners range from headaches and migraines to thymus gland dysfunction, impairment of liver and kidney function, and mood disorders.
Bottom line:
Artificial sweeteners won't help you break your taste for sugar, only increase it. This is not what we are trying to accomplish here.
Just like it's important to be able to spot added sugars on food labels, it's equally as important to be able to spot artificial sweeteners on food labels. Here are some of the most common on the market today:
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