Start working to retrain your palette to enjoy the natural sweetness of foods, not added sweeteners. Try adding other flavors like tangy, tart, warm and savory to please your palette. For example, vanilla, cocoa, licorice, nutmeg and cinnamon enhance the flavor of foods, so you need less sweetness. With that said, natural sugars are equally high in calories and will cause blood sugar spikes, insulin peaks and sabotage attempts to control weight. It’s, therefore, best to limit natural sugars to no more than 1 or 2 teaspoons per day.

Heuberger R. Overview of non-nutritive sweeteners. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed Nov. 11, 2022. Although there’s limited research on the effects of monk fruit in humans, it’s generally considered safe and hasn’t been associated with any negative side effects ( 22). Know your limit for added sugars. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/sugar.html. Accessed Nov. 14, 2022.

Diet & Weight Management

Sucralose was originally found through the development of a new insecticide compound and wasn’t originally intended to be consumed. Finally, if you have a dog at home, keep xylitol out of its reach, as xylitol is highly toxic to dogs ( 15). Summary At 600 times sweeter than sugar, it’s easy to see how the use of sucralose can contribute to an addiction for overly sweet foods and drinks. It’s also possible that artificial sweeteners make us crave sweeter food by altering our palate. Artificial sweeteners, which can be thousands of times sweeter than sugar, have the potential to overstimulate our sweet taste receptors. Although it’s often better tolerated than other sugar alcohols, it could cause digestive issues, including gas and diarrhea, if you consume too much at a time — especially if it’s combined with other types of sugar like fructose.

Erythritol has come under fire recently because of a new small study linking it to adverse cardiac events and thrombosis. 8 participants were instructed to drink 30 g of erythritol in water. The increased erythritol blood levels of the participants lingered for days after ingestion.

Aspartame is also known as Nutrasweet, Equal, and Sugar Twin. It does provide calories, but because it is 160 to 220 times sweeter than sucrose, very small amounts are needed for sweetening so the caloric intake is negligible. The FDA has set the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for aspartame at 50 mg/kg of body weight. To determine your ADI, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 and then multiply it by 50. For example, if you weigh 200 lbs., your weight in kg would be 91 (200 divided by 2.2) and your ADI for aspartame would be 4550 mg (50 x 91). Here is the amount of aspartame in some common foods: Sugar alcohols like xylitol aren’t absorbed well by the body and cause an allergic reaction for those who have a sensitivity to them. In addition, they have gastrointestinal side effects that include bloating, gas, cramping and diarrhea.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture. https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov. Accessed Nov. 11, 2022. Headaches: One study confirmed that individuals with self-reported headaches after the ingestion of aspartame were in deed susceptible to headaches due to aspartame. Three randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled studies with more than 200 adult migraine sufferers showed that headaches were more frequent and more severe in the aspartame-treated group.

The best option for second place is finding a natural low-calorie sweetener that you enjoy. The FDA has approved two natural plant-derived low-calorie sweeteners, including extracts obtained from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana plants and extracts from Siraitia grosvenorii, also known as monk fruit.

Sweet and Low (saccharin): Sweet and Low is one of the first available artificial sweeteners and used in foods, medicine, and even in toothpaste. Saccharin is around 300 to 400 times sweeter than sugar, has no calories, and can be used in cooking, too. It’s absorbed into your body from your intestines, but it’s eventually excreted from your urine unchanged ( 7). How are they different? Stevia is considered a "natural non-caloric sweetener." Saccharin and sucralose are considered "non-nutritive sweeteners" (few or no calories). Aspartame is a "nutritive sweetener" (adds some calories but far less than sugar). Sweeteners are not essential nutrients in our diet, so they exist to nurture our sweet tooth, not our bodies.

Artificial sweeteners and other sugar substitutes

Blood pressure. Stevia may help lower high blood pressure in people with hypertension. However, it doesn’t affect normal or only mildly elevated blood pressure levels ( 2).