Here’s a question about artificial sweeteners, but it’s one I did not expect…

I feel sorry for you that you think artificial sweeteners are ok. Have you ever heard of Dr. Russell Blaylock? Just put his name in any search engine. You’re blinded by the mainstream media. Wake up and go to naturalnews.com

Hi there,

Thanks for writing in with your comments, although I have to wonder if you got me confused with someone else. I absolutely hate artificial sweeteners! Like virtually all artificial ingredients, they have no place in my diet.

I’m familiar with many of the natural health type of doctors (Russell Blaylock, Joseph Mercola, Andrew Weil, etc.) and NaturalNews.com. I also read KitchenTableMedicine.com, FitnessSpotlight.com, EvolvingWellness.com, Mark’s Daily Apple, etc.

I do mention artificial sweeteners on my site, though, so let’s make sure I’m clear on this…

Sometimes I test products that contain artificial sweeteners, but I mention in the reviews that I would not normally consume nor recommend anything containing aspartame, sucralose, etc.

The only time I ingest artificial sweeteners is when doing a taste test of a certain product that happens to contain them. That’s not very often, so I highly doubt I’m going to die from some sort of aspartame poisoning, even if it does prove to be extremely dangerous in the long-term.

Here are some examples.

- I wrote a short review of Gatorade G2. Just the concept of G2 annoys me, so it got a pretty bad review.

- FRS Healthy Energy comes in all natural and low calorie versions, with the low cal containing sucralose. So for a situation like the FRS powder, where all flavors contain sucralose, I mentioned that I don’t like sucralose (twice!)

- Most recently, I wrote a review of Cytomax sports drink. I was especially disappointed in this one, because a sports drink that already contains sugar should NOT need sucralose in there, too.

Then there are drinks like Sobe Lifewater. I reviewed that years ago, when it used fructose (and had 50 calories per serving.) These days, I’m pretty sure it uses sucralose and jumped on the low calorie bandwagon. So don’t equate my review of a 2006 version of a product to a review of a 2009 product.

Heck, in a few more years, sucralose will probably be in just about everything! (Including the public water supply…)

To sum things up, I do not like nor recommend products that contain artificial sweeteners. When in doubt, follow this guideline: If something contains aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, or acesulfame k, I recommend you avoid it.

If you found something different on CoachLevi.com, where I explicitly recommend artificial sweeteners, please let me know the page so I can correct it.

One day I was watching the morning news and saw a segment about avoiding sugar or cutting calories by cutting out sugar. They had an expert on as a guest, and if I remember correctly, it was someone from Good Housekeeping magazine.

Good Housekeeping is pretty big, but you never know if the news shows are getting real “experts” or just someone that will create controversy to boost their ratings…

They starting going over drinks like fruit juice, sports drinks, and soda, while offering comparisons of nutrition facts such as sugar content. You know, drinks that seem like the healthy option (juice) up against the evil, unhealthy option (soda.) The segment really focused on sugar content and calories though, leaving out any other health benefits (or drawbacks.)

What was the conclusion?

That fruit juice is bad for you because it has so many calories. We’re talking about orange juice and apple juice here, and they say it’s the unhealthy option!

Worse, they went on to recommend that you stay away from juice, and instead go for the drinks with artificial sweeteners. The recommended lineup included Diet Pepsi.

Are you kidding?! Diet Pepsi instead of apple juice?!

No thanks, I’ll take my fruit juice and Gatorade and the extra calories, along with the health benefits. You can keep the diet sodas full of aspartame, and the resulting cancer, for yourself.

Although I’ll admit that claiming that diet soda is healthier than fruit juice was a great way to catch people’s attention!

Photo credit: Maulleigh