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Natural Artificial: The Great Sweetener Debate
Are artificial sweeteners a healthy alternative?
Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love (Solomon 2:5).
It seems these days nearly all of us are concerned with our weight and/or diet and a lot of us suffer from weight problems. To be healthy, is to eat healthy! That is a very simple maxim to remember every time you eat. Yet there are people who still cannot maintain a balanced diet and instead search for easier ways to try and stay at a healthy weight, which often means cheating your body and depriving it of valuable nutrients. Many people go for low carbohydrate diets, low fat diets or low sugar diets which equates to not being a balanced diet at all. Ask any food nutritionist or health professional, those in particular who couple common sense with their practice, and they will tell you that in order to be a functioning individual you should eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly. Not too hard really!
I am going to focus on people’s obsession with sugar, in particular, those who substitute natural sugar in their diet with artificial sweeteners that contain a very nasty ingredient called – aspartame. Across the world people are drinking diet soft drinks, or eating low or no calorie foods which, in order to have no caloric value, contain artificial sweetener in place of a natural sugar. It does strike me as ironic that even though there are more ‘diet’ products available than ever before, obesity is still one of the biggest health problems in Western society. I think that the problem with sugar is that it is misunderstood, maybe if nutrition was a subject taught at all schools people would be in a better position to make better choices in relation to their health and wellbeing.
There are some of us who for their own health reasons cannot eat sugar, for example those people who have diabetes. But that does not mean that you have to use artificial sweeteners either, particularly when the key ingredient contained in all artificial sweeteners is actually a risk to your health. Commonly people who chose to use artificial sweeteners do so in order not to gain weight, because it is true that eating an excessive amount of sugar will lead to putting on weight. To explain what sugar does once ingested, it would make sense to understand the simple metabolic process of how sugar is used by our body.
Sugar is the commonly used term for sucrose, a naturally occurring ‘simple’ carbohydrate. Sugar is broken down by the digestive processes to release even simpler carbohydrates, including glucose. Glucose is normally the brain’s only source of energy, and also the muscles’ preferred source of energy for vigorous physical work. However, there is no need to eat sugar to obtain all the glucose the brain and muscles need. Complex carbohydrate foods such as bread, rice and pasta (preferably wholegrain), legumes (peas, beans, lentils and so on) and potatoes will achieve this, while also providing vitamins, minerals, protein and dietary fibre. Fruit and milk products also provide essential nutrients along with some carbohydrate.
Understanding that we do not need to eat any additional sugar in our balanced diets anyway, it is only natural to desire a sweet treat! Even those who aren’t supposed to eat sugar no doubt get cravings as well. So why avoid foods and drinks that contain artificial sweetener you ask? How could these products be bad for you when really they are actually better than eating a homemade cake or jam biscuit because they do not contain sugar? This leads me to the point of the article. We all try and be healthy, well maybe not all of us, but if you are reading this magazine I can hazard a guess that you are probably a health conscious individual. Sugar is only a ‘bad’ food if it has been refined or you consume the type of sugar that is in the form of chocolate bars and ice creams. With processed sugar, such as a chocolate bar, the body gets tricked into feeling satisfied when in fact sweetness is deficient in essential vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and enzymes (that are normally present in foods) and will leave you feeling hungry again shortly after. This means you are more than likely going to eat more food, overloading your body with calories or energy that you may not be using.
I have always lived by the philosophy that if it is natural (preferably organic) and eaten in moderation it cannot be harmful to your health. Therefore it may be useful information for you to know that there are alternatives to using artificial sweeteners or other ways in which you can have a sugar hit without having to eat something that your body won’t like you for. After having a conversation with friends about aspartame, it pricked my interest to look further into what aspartame is and why it has such a bad name for itself. After documenting my research, I felt sure of the philosophy I opened this paragraph with and you will see why.
Aspartame (L-alpha-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester) is a low calorie non-nutritive sweetener used to sweeten a wide variety of low and reduced calorie foods and drinks including tabletop sweeteners. Aspartame is composed of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, as the methyl ester, and is approximately 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Aspartame is often listed on foodstuffs as additive – 951, so it is important to look out for ‘numbers’ on the ingredients panel in foods. Most consumers do not recognise or will not be able to discern what all of these numbers are so it is of some help to know what 951 is when shopping.
There are a host of different chemical sweeteners used in food production but aspartame is the one more commonly used in food production in Australia and New Zealand. Because aspartame is a chemical, not a natural sweetener, it has been linked to a variety of health complaints and is currently the focus of many studies being carried out throughout the world. What makes aspartame a possible risk to your health is how it breaks down within the body once it has been digested.
Aspartame has been found to cause a form of poisoning within the body that can then lead to other diseases and disorders. The poisoning is due to the chemical constituents contained in aspartame. Aspartame is made up of three chemicals; aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. Two of these chemicals have been found to pose serious health risks and have been linked to other illnesses for people who use aspartame based sweeteners for prolonged periods of time.
Methanol, once ingested, converts into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body. Formaldehyde is a neurotoxin. Methanol is considered a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized and becomes formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic. All things toxic have a poisoning affect on your physiology.
Aspartic Acid and Phenylalanine are both amino acids and both act as neurotransmitters in the brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. Aspartic Acid and Phenylalanine overproduce these amino acids in the brain which kills certain neurons by allowing the influx of too much calcium into the cells. This influx triggers excessive amounts of free radicals which kill the cells. Therefore the ingestion of excessive aspartic acid from aspartame has been found to cause serious chronic neurological disorders and a myriad of other acute symptoms.
The components of aspartame can lead to a number of health problems, as you have read. Side effects can occur gradually, they can be immediate, or can be acute reactions. Because aspartame poisoning presents so many possible symptoms, that can also be indicative of other diseases and disorders, it has been very difficult for health professionals to diagnose. If you have ever gone to a doctor to seek treatment for a health problem and they have been unable to provide you with a diagnosis, the problem is either related to your diet, your environment or both. That is why it makes sense to ensure that you are living and eating well to remain in good health, or if you are concerned that an aspect of your lifestyle is making you sick, cut it out and see if that makes a difference.
Some of the symptoms of aspartame poisoning include;
Abdominal pain, anxiety attacks, arthritis, asthma, bloating, oedema (fluid retention) blood sugar control problems (hyperglycaemia), breathing difficulties, burning eyes or throat, burning urination, chest pains, chronic cough, chronic fatigue, depression, diarrhoea, dizziness, excessive thirst or hunger, fatigue, hair loss or thinning of hair, headaches/migraines, dizziness, heart palpitations, hypertension (high blood pressure), impotency and sexual problems, inability to concentrate, insomnia, joint pains, memory loss, menstrual problems, muscle spasms, nausea or vomiting, panic attacks, rapid heart beat (tachycardia), palpitations, shortness of breath, tremors, vision loss and weight gain.
As set out by a US governing body, the recommend limit of consumption of aspartame (or artificial sweeteners containing aspartame) is 7.8 mg/day. A one-litre aspartame sweetened beverage contains about 56 mg of methanol. Heavy users of aspartame containing products consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily or 32 times the approved limit.
Names of products using aspartame:
• NutraSweet®
• Equal
• Spoonful
Now, I understand that it is often easier said than done, cutting something out of your diet that you have become accustomed to consuming. We are all creatures of habit and all our diet really is, is our pattern of eating. But as with every other aspect of life, we have choice. We can all choose to live healthier lives and the goods and services that enable us to do so are available to us all, regardless of age or income. After coming to the conclusion that a natural product surpasses a synthetic or chemical product in quality and benefit to the individual, I decided to carry on with my research in order to find out what alternatives are available to artificial sweeteners. I found out what natural sweeteners are available in the marketplace and what products can be used to sweeten foods and drinks that do not pose a risk to your health. Because trying to cut out sweetness altogether from your diet is not only near impossible for some, it is not the answer.
Names of natural sweetener products:
• Sucanet®
• Stevia
• Xylitol
• Honey
• Frozen juice concentrates
• Granulated fruit sugar
• Fructose
• Barley Malt
• Brown rice syrup
• Date sugar
• Fruit Source®
• Glucose
Not all natural sweeteners have a nil calorie value, some are low calorie which helps those who are on weight management programs, and other natural sweeteners you would use as you would white sugar – in moderation. But the beauty of natural sweeteners is that they possess other nutritional and health benefits other than just providing sweetness and they sustain your energy levels longer. Natural sweeteners can also be used by anyone, including diabetics and people who have coeliac disease or gluten intolerances. More and more food products (including diet and gluten free foods) are becoming available in the marketplace that contain natural sweetening agents.
Upon visiting the sugar isle in one of the big chain supermarkets, I was happy to find a granulated fruit sugar substitute available along with all the artificial sweeteners. So all this means that you have more choices about what you decide to eat. Your health is your most important asset and oftentimes it is hard to get the ‘right’ information, the facts about the foodstuffs you buy because they are marketed in such clever ways. It pays to read the ingredients table of all packaged or processed foods even if you cannot discern what all the numbers are, at least that way you know that there are additives that may not be desirable to eat. Some ingredients that make up a component of a product could be protected by food laws and legislation, meaning that they can continue to be used in food production and manufacturing until they are found to be dangerous to human health.
For those of you who would like to know more about the natural sweeteners available, two in particular come to mind as being better alternatives to their artificial counterparts – stevia and xylitol.
Stevia, also called sweetleaf or sugarleaf, is a genus of about 150 species of herbs and shrubs. Stevia plant extract is up to 300 times as sweet as sugar and is a low carbohydrate, low sugar food. Stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, therefore can be used by candida sufferers, diabetics and those on carbohydrate controlled diets. Stevia also has antimicrobial and antifungal properties which means it has many other uses. More importantly in relation to the sugar debate, stevia is calorie free; it contains zero calories which brings good tidings particularly during the festive season. Because the human body does not metabolise sweet glycosides the body obtains no calories from stevia. This natural sweetener is available in luquid, tablet and powder form giving it unlimited uses in cooking and food preparation.
The other natural sweetener to note is Xylitol, a white crystalline substance that looks and tastes like sugar. It is a low calorie sweetener that occurs naturally in many fruits and vegetables and is also produced in the human body during normal metabolism. The commercial production of Xylitol comes from plants such as birch and other hardwood trees and fibrous vegetation. Xylitol has a low glycaemic index, no bitter aftertaste and has anti-carcinogenic properties.
To cut down on sugar in your diet it is as easy as having dried fruit if you need a sweet treat, switching to using natural sweetener, try honey in your tea instead. There are many ways that you can help yourself and your health by trying something out to see if it suits your tastes and needs. Being weight conscious or limited by other health factors doesn’t mean missing out either, I have discovered a range of products that cater for the sweet tooth in us all. To my surprise I have found that there are gluten free chocolate cake mixes that contain natural sweetener available, chewing gums and a range of other treats that are not so naughty after all.
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