Processed sugar has been linked to problems with diabetes, heart disease and obesity — so it is no surprise that the World Health Organization and other authorities on the subject recommend that everyone should reduce their sugar intake by at least half: no more than 25 grams of sugar daily. This has led to a booming market for substitute sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose and stevia. Here is a description of these three popular sweeteners to help you decide which one is the best for you:
ASPARTAME
Found in: Canderel, Silver Spoon Sweetness & Light, Tesco granulated sweetener, Diet Coke Muller Light.
Two hundred times sweeter than sugar, aspartame is made from two amino acids (protein building blocks) joined together.
It’s widely used in zero-calorie diet drinks – often alongside another sweetener, acesulfame K, as the two taste better together.
Aspartame also comes as a powder or as tablets and you can drop 3,600 calories in a month or a pound in weight by using the tablets in place of two teaspoons of sugar in three cuppas a day.
Methanol is a breakdown product of aspartame that is toxic at high levels but the amount formed from a diet drink is less than a tenth of that formed from a fruit juice of the same size, according to the American Cancer Society.
Read about more sweeteners on the next page …