{"id":1679,"date":"2014-11-07T07:07:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T13:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jbyrdyoga.com\/blog\/?p=1679"},"modified":"2014-11-07T07:46:33","modified_gmt":"2014-11-07T13:46:33","slug":"battle-of-the-sugar-substitutes-a-guide-to-the-sweet-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jbyrdyoga.com\/blog\/battle-of-the-sugar-substitutes-a-guide-to-the-sweet-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of the Sugar Substitutes – a guide to the sweet stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no doubt that most of us enjoy sweet tastes.\u00a0 There is good evidence that this is a hardwired preference that we all seem to possess – some more than others.\u00a0 After all it makes good genetic sense for us to be attracted to a food source that could offer us an easy route to energy.\u00a0 Glucose is one half of the necessary ingredient for cellular energy, the other half being oxygen.\u00a0 Our distant ancestor’s very survival depended on whether they had access to enough calories to survive a harsh and unforgiving natural world.\u00a0 If they came across a source of sugar – typically in the form of honey – that was a boon and something to be relished and definitely worth a few bee stings to get it.
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\"Luo
Luo Han Guo – also known as Monk Fruit<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nYou may have noticed that things are a little different today than they were in the time of our ancient ancestors.\u00a0 Few of us in modern cultures struggle for enough calories to survive.\u00a0 It is a reverse of the olden times in that we are now practically drowning in sugar and the threat to our survival is avoiding the super sweet cornucopia.\u00a0\u00a0 Even though this might be true, we modern humans still have the sweet tooth of our ancestors and all things being equal we will typically pick the sweet thing over the not sweet thing every time.\u00a0 Thus there have been many different companies whose sole purpose is to provide us the sweet without the penalty.\u00a0 In other words there are many different types of non-sugar sweeteners out there.\u00a0 They promise to make us healthier but still allow us all the sweetness we crave.\u00a0 If this sounds too good to be true – you are right.\u00a0 Not all is golden in the artificial sweetener world.<\/p>\n

Guide to Artificial Sweeteners<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It used to be that there were very few artificial sweeteners with the major one being saccharine.\u00a0 I can remember the scare back in the 80s when it was revealed that if you gave rats gallons of this sweetener they would eventually develop cancer.\u00a0 Well, it turns out that if you give a tiny creature gallons of practically anything there can be a negative health effect – but that bit of news did not come out until later.\u00a0 What I remember was the absolute run on saccharine as people did their utmost to preserve their piece of the sweet pie.<\/p>\n

These days our choices in sugar substitutes are vast.\u00a0 So vast in fact it is hard to keep up with all of the new ones out there.\u00a0 I thought it would be nice to put together a little guide to help you make the best choices.<\/p>\n

As I have done before in the Battle of the Berries<\/a> and in the Battle of the Nuts<\/a>, I will compare the good with the bad and reveal the overall winner in each category.\u00a0 Here are the sugar substitute contestants:<\/p>\n

Category: Artificial Sweeteners<\/strong><\/p>\n

This means the sweetener is a synthetic compound with no natural components.<\/p>\n