Artificial Sweeteners: What you need to know

“Sugar causes weight gain and has lot of calories.” This notion formed the basis of almost every other diet plan, followed by weight watchers. Then artificial sweeteners came into the picture, and quickly gained popularity among people, as a much-needed dose of sweetness, with little to no calories. For instance, one can of soda has 150 calories and a can of diet soda has minimal calories.

But food is not just about calories, it’s also about nutrients and the impact they have on our bodies. Food is information that our body receives. Artificial sweeteners may be low in calories, but there are other aspects one needs to be mindful of while consuming them in abundance.

Artificial sweeteners like saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium and sucralose are 400-500 times sweeter than sugar. So, if these sweeteners are consumed frequently, they can lead to overstimulation of sugar receptors. This can decrease our tolerance to other tastes. People who regularly use artificial sweetener tablets in their food may start to find other foods that are not as sweet less appealing, and unsweet foods, such as vegetables, totally unpalatable. Over a period of time, you can also get more inclined to liking artificially flavoured foods, avoiding healthy, high-fibre, nutritious foods. Many people who consume sucralose for a long time have observed frequent bloating and gas formation, as it hampers the growth of good bacteria in our gut, disrupting gut health. So, for anyone with digestion problems, I would recommend you to include natural sugars in the diet rather than these artificial sweeteners. Children below three years of age and people having phenylketonuria should not consume aspartame.