Splenda questions

[seeitrun2006]

I think I may have posted the subject of Splenda on AWO before but I can't remember. Maybe my memory is started to go!

Does anyone here have problems using Splenda? I cannot tolerate it at all. Makes me light headed, weak, fatigued and sometimes triggers migraines. I went off of it around the early part of the year and the symptoms went away.

However my wife baked some peanut butter cookies using 1 1/3 cup of Spenda in them Tuesday night. I thought I would try some to see how I would react. I eat three of them back to back. About 10 to 15 minutes later I almost passed out which I'm pretty sure was the Splenda. I've read on the internet some people cannot use Splenda for various reasons. It has taken about two days to recover from Tuesday night.

I stopped using Aspartine years ago because of the reactions and migrianes I experienced with it.

I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes last year. I'm running out of options for sweetners.

Opinions!

Thanks!
David

 

[maytagbear]

There is one you might try

it is called Stevia. (That is the name of the substance, not a brand name). It is from a plant. It is currently sold in the US as a "nutritional supplement."

It's very, very concentrated, and is considered safe for people with diabetes.

That said, I have had no problems with Splenda, aspartame, acesulfame-K, or even saccharine.

I wish I could be one of "those people" who find fresh fruit to be dessert enough.

Good luck.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[oldhouseman]

Well Lawrence

I must be one of "those people". I don't like sweetners of any kind and fresh fruit is fine for dessert. No sugar or sweetner in my tea or coffee. I keep sweet tea on hand for my partner and plenty of sweetners on hand for guests but do without it myself.

No cakes, cookies, candy, crackers, white bread,jelly, jams....

I prefer spices to sweet stuff. Hot mustard, chili, savory but no sweets.

My mother died of a brain tumor 21 years ago. One of her doctors told me then he thought her heavy use of "equal" may have been a contributing factor.

David, have you considered just doing without sweetners since you do have some related health concerns??

 

[seeitrun2006]

Sweetners

Oldhouseman,

I come from a long line of sweet eaters. When my dad's side of the family gets together there is one whole table of nothing but sweets. I will eat a few but not go hog wild on them.

I also have tried to do without sweetner in my decafe coffee. But I need a little something in it to lively it up a bit.

If you look at what I use to eat "sweet wise" about 1 1/2 years ago compared to now I do not consume near the amount of sugar and sweets.

I guess you might say I'm one of those people who needs something sweet to eat on occasion.

Lawrence,

I have read about Stevia and will give it a try soon.

Thanks!

 

[toggleswitch2]

I react badly to high fructose corn syrup. Which, BTW, is in everything.......

Interesting to see commercial advertisements trying to down-play the concerns with it. "IT'S OK IN MODERATION"

Honey, never down-play how good it is to suck on some sweet fruit occasionally. "It's ALL a body needs"

 

[peterh770]

I don't like any of the chemical sweeteners and avoid them as much as possible. Mom was a diet soda junkie, now she has pancreatic cancer. Coincidence?

A good friend of mine was pre-diabetic. She joined Weight Watchers and the pre-diabetic condition went away after she lost just 10 percent of her weight. I'm doing WW for health reasons myself, but not diabetes.

 

[oldhouseman]

PeterH770

Sorry to hear about your mom. I hope she is doing well considering her condition. When I was about 8 I remember hearing a doctor tell my grandmother to avoid soft drinks, especially diet ones. He believed back then (mid sixties) that people would ruin their health with modern processed foods. And so it has come to pass. Glad to hear about the WW diets. I need to loose a few pounds (tummy) and am trying just to eat healthy foods and mostly what comes out of my own garden. Going back to eating local and seasonal foods like when I was growing up.

 

[mattl]

I too suffer then I use any of the Aspertane based products. Almost instant headache in the front of my head, weird feeling at the base of my skull, and a soapy taste in my mouth. Even trace amounts I am aware of.

There is a new Stevia based product on the market, the soft drink companies are itching to use it. I saw an ad on TV for it, I guess they processed it and made a granular product, just don't know how "natural" it will be after all the processing.

 

[peterh770]

Thanks, Greg...

And Stevia Nicks is sweetness to my ears!

 

[brisnat81]

We religously shun artifican sweeteners in my family.

Mum has been a Insulin Dependant Diabetic since 1960 (She's now 52) and has seen various fads throughout the time.

Her first diet sheets from the early 60's were grouped into Red yellow and Green Foods, The red foods included almost all carbs, potatoes, bread, carrots, pasta, broccoli, peas, soft drink, etc etc etc, so the ideal back then was to get rid of carbs entirely.

The Second Fad brought almost all foods in except refined sugars and replaced them with sweeteners.

These days, as long as she only eats a piece of cake, or a couple of Biscuits (Cookies) or a glass of juice or softdrink as part of a balanced, low GI diet it doesnt make any difference to her levels.

Since she got an insulin pump 5 years ago, the number of Hypo's are down to 1 or 2 per year and her sugar levels consistently stay in the normal range between 3.5mmol and 7mmol.

The reason for my long winded not entirely relevent response. If you excerise, lose weight, cut back on overly processed foods, eat well made baked items rather than mass produced crap and you're eating it as part of a balanced diet, you should be fine. Artificial Sweetener doesnt need to be part of anyones diet these days.

Finally, thank god we still shun corn syrup in AU, 99% of all naturally sweetened items use cane sugar.

 

[sudsmaster]

Stick with natural foods.

Regular table sugar (sucrose) has gotten an undeserved bad rap.

The popular conception is that because diabetes causes high blood sugar, in the form of glucose, that eating sugar is the cause. Not necessarily so. One's blood sugar actually spikes much more rapidly and hazardously after eating a bowl of white rice or other refined starch than it would by eating the equivalent amount of table sugar. The sucrose in table sugar actually takes longer to digest and raises the blood sugar more slowly.

One's doctor should be consulted for pre diabetic or diabetic condition - but the general advice will be to lose weight, get exercise, eat carbs in moderation, select whole grain versions of carbs instead of refined carbs. And of course monitor your blood sugar and take your meds to help keep the level under control.

Also, the popular conception is that eating sweets causes diabetes. I'm not so sure that is the case. Diabetes increasingly is though to be the result of inflammation, which causes insulin resistance, and the insulin resistance makes it difficult for blood sugar to get into the cells and brain, and makes one crave sweets and carbs even though one's blood sugar is already elevated. So craving sweets is more a symptom of diabetes than a cause.

 

[panthera]

Peter,

I am sorry to hear of your mother's illness. All my best wishes for you, her and your family.
Keven

 

[turboace]

Don't use Stevia!

Or any other artificial sweetener. Stevia is extracted from a plant called the stevia plant. In the form referenced in the above posts, it is very impure. That is one reason why the FDA never approved it for use in food, only Nutritional Supplements. You will notice that every stevia sweetener has a Supplement facts Pannel as apposed to a Nutritional Facts pannel that you find on foods. Foods are much more hightly regulated by the FDA and held under much more scrutiny. Any ingredient used in foods must be GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) by the FDA. Stevia is not GRAS and can not be used in foods. Stevia also can have very bitter and unplesent aftertaste as well as some liccorice notes.

Stay away from Splenda. Their tag line "made from sugar, tastes like sugar" is quite deceptive. What they fail to tell you is there is a giant chemical reaction inbetween that uses things like chlorination to change it into the high potency sweetener that it is sold as.

Great News! This company called Cargill just launched the worlds first all natural high potency sweetener called Truvia(TM). Click the link below to the Truvia website. Truvia is extracted from the Stevia plant, but further purified down to only the best tasting sweet compounds from the plant.

Truvia, common name rebiana, is also safe. "WAYZATA, Minn., [December 17, 2008] - Today, Cargill received official notification from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stating that the agency has no objection to the conclusion of an independent expert panel which reviewed research that rebaudioside A (rebiana), the identity in Truvia™ rebiana, is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for use as a general purpose sweetener. The FDA letter affirms and supports rebiana’s safety and the data used to make that determination."

So, not only is it safe in the eyes of the FDA, it tastes great!

Hmmmm, maybe by now you may be wondering, how does he know so much about this? Its my job. I'm a Food Scientist. I work for Cargill Health and Nutrition, the business unit in Cargill that developed Truvia. If anyone has any questions, please ask them here, I'm happy to answer them, or, just shoot me an email. And please run out to your grocery store and buy some, it is on the shelf right next to spelda and equal.

http://www.truvia.com/index.html

 

[turboace]

Check out this Video about how we developed Truvia.

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http://www.truvia.com/media-video.html

 

[sudsmaster]

Yeah, I saw the ad on Truvia on TV the other day. Haven't noticed it on the shelf as yet. I have a small bottle of stevia extract that I used for a while. Interestingly, there is some evidence that stevia actually helps to lower blood sugar. Is there any such evidence for Truvia?

Just because something is GRAS doesn't necessarily mean it's safe. It just means it was in widespread use before the FDA was created without any known major health side effects. I studied nutrition at Cal for a while, and a notable exception was FDC Red #2, "Amaranth". It was also on the GRAS list but was later shown to be mutagenic and probably carcinogenic. It took several years to convince the FDA to take it off the GRAS list, if I recall all this correctly. All happened back in the '70's, and it was a big deal with food safety advocates back then.

So I'm glad that Cargill has developed a refined Stevia product but I'd want to know more about it before I'd recommend it to friends. Is is simply an isolation of certain compound(s) from the stevia plant? Are they chemically altered in any way shape or form? What's the cost compared, to, say, table sugar?

PS-I like licorice so that aspect of Stevia never bothered me.

 

[tbolt25]

saccharin safety

Actually, despite the past controversy with the lab rats, I think saccharin is the safest (and it's been around the longest) artificial sweetener-recent studies largely failed to turn up any health effects in humans at normal doses-the lab rats were given large doses of it-equivalent to 750 diet sodas every day for a lifetime, it is also one of the most studied ingredient in the U.S. food supply-and it no longer carries that misleading warning label.

 

[bosch2460]

Just my two cents here. But I have done a lot of research, reading and have worked with special diets, etc, for years. I believe that the more natural, the better.

Any sugar substitute is a crock of shit. Equal and Saccharine are well known to be cancer causing. Saccharine is highly likely to cause colon cancer. Splenda is actually made of sugar, but chlorine is used in the processing, so basically it is bleached, highly processed sugar. Even white refined sugar is bleached. Sugar in real form is actually tan/brown. Sugar substitutes will not help a person lose weight, either. They can actually make you gain, by holding sugars in your tissues. There are a lot of all natural sweeteners out there. Stevia rates very highly in my book. It is not processed, does not change your glycemic index, or have that disgusting after taste. It is derived from a plant, and is not synthetic. That new Truvia is supposed to be stevia, but I am not sure of the processing or if it is purity. You can get it in pure form at the health food store. Its very expensive, but it goes a long, long way. Its incredibly concentrated. I feel very strongly about sugar substitutes and the like. Do not get me started on margarine, or that damn high fructose corn syrup. OK in moderation, my ass. Granted, you cannot avoid all of these things all the time. My rule of thumb is, if it was not around 100 years ago as a food, I prefer not to eat it.

Joel

 

[turboace]

Bosch2460,

Did you have a chance to check out the Truvia website? Spend sime time clicking around and you will find that Truvia, our trade name for 97% rebaudisied a, common name,rebiana, is extracted from the stevia plant. Rebaudiside A is the best tasting sweet compound from the leaf of the plant. There are many other sweet compounds, all known as steviosides, however the reb-a is the best tasting. The extraction uses water and the molecule is not changed at all during the processing and concentration, so according to the FDA guidelines it is Natural. Exhaustive research was done on the safety of the rebiana, it is safe. Since the reb-a is extracted purified and concentrated from the stevia, it is actually more pure than stevia because it is 97% reb-a.

The link attached to FAQ's should answer all of your questions.

http://www.allaboutrebiana.com/FAQs.html

 

[sudsmaster]

Stevia has been used for many years, perhaps hundreds of years, in India. In its natural form.

The quest for sweetness substitutes is interesting. Why do we need to make something taste sweet? In nature, sweetness in a fruit and some vegetables is an indication of ripeness and other good nutrition (vitamins, minerals). A sickly plant probably won't put out a sweet fruit, berry, or vegetable. When we add extra sweetness to our diet we are in effect fooling our bodies into thinking it's getting nutrition that's not necessarily there. So, even though a sweetener is 100% natural it's not necessarily the best thing one could injest in quantity. And remember, just because something is natural doesn't mean it's safe. There are plenty of natural plant poisons out there.

I'm not knocking Stevia or Truvia, and I have a pretty strong sweet tooth. But I don't think any sweetening additive is the key to good health. Rather, sticking to accepting the sweetness of foods as they are grown will get you a more balanced diet. (Note, carrots are actually quite sweet!).

Lastly, a craving for sweets or carbs may indication that one has a problem getting blood glucose into one's cells. This may be a sign of diabetes, which in turn may be a sign of internal inflammation (recent studies suggest that intestinal flora and inflammation may be a cause of insulin resistance). See you doctor before you buy yet another additive.

 

[bosch2460]

Turboace, thanks for the info. I looked the site. I am very cautious of this kind of new product. From what I am reading, it is nothing more than stevia, made into a more expensive, TOL product. Since stevia has probably been around since Jesus, I would just as soon ingest that, than something that was made up by Cargill. But it sure is an interesting concept on their part.

Sudsmaster, I agree with the sweetness concept. If you really want natural sweeteners, lets not forget honey. It is anti-bacterial, changes the glycemic index minimally, and is sweet, but not too sweet. Corn syrup, aka, Karo, has also been around for years. It was around 100 years ago, so it does fall under my rule. Even a jelly or jam that is smooth can be a good sweetener. Buy a juicer...juice fruits and use that as a sweetener. Carrot juice is very sweet, but it tints everything orange. Americans as a general rule consume more sugar and refined flour, than any other country in the World. All of it is available in organic form. Thank the FDA for that lovely high fructose corn syrup, which is technically addictive to your body. If you eat a lot, try not eating it, and you will find yourself craving sweets. Personally, I eat organic as much as possible, and read labels on products. I am also a coupon whore, so it takes me a while to make lists and go through the grocery store. But when you save 40+ bucks a trip, and are eating organic, it is worth it to me. Again, you cannot avoid everything all the time, but IMHO, it pays in the long run to know what is going into your body, and to be careful, and the question, what the FDA considers safe.

 

[seeitrun2006]

Check out the chewing gum labels

Hey everyone! Thanks everyone for your input and experiences. Turboace thanks for the information shared on the Truvia. I will probaly try it soon.

I was in Walmart today checking out chewing gum labels during my lunch hour. I CANNOT find one brand of gum that does not have aspartame in it. So there goes my chewing gum habit! I have switched to Life Savers pep-o-mint mints (blue bag). I agree sugar is not a bad thing when done in moderaton.

My wife and I have started eating better and excerising since the first of the year. My pants have started to loosen around my waist area again. I once again have blood flow to my lower body.

Peace and blessings,
David