Help identifying Artificial Sweeteners

[Dotultimate]

Hey guys... In Australia they do not list which sweeteners are used by name, merely by number. I'm trying to avoid aspartame (obviously) so I have been looking up the different numbers to discover whats in my food.

Can you please tell me which sweeteners are BETTER that others? I use splenda at home, but thats a brand - which are the sweeteners that are a better than aspartame?

Thanks guys!

Dot

[Promise]

personally I use STEVIA... Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana), a perennial shrub indigenous to South America, is about 300 times sweeter than table sugar... O - CALORIES 0- CARBS i like that... all i need is a Tiny Pinch and its MORE than enough to sweeten my Coffee...

[Elizellen]

Here is what Dr Atkins says about sweeteners

Artificial Sweeteners

You must determine which artificial sweeteners agree with you, but the following are allowed: sucralose (marketed at Splenda®), saccharin, cyclamate, acesulfame-K. Natural sweeteners ending in the suffix "-ose," such as maltose, fructose, etc., should be avoided. However, certain sugar alcohols such as maltitol do not affect blood sugar and are acceptable.

Saccharin has been extensively studied, and harmful effects were produced in the lab when fed to rats only in extremely high doses. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has removed saccharin from its list of carcinogens, basing its decision upon a thorough review of the medical literature and the National Institute of Science's statement that there is "no clear association between saccharin and human cancer." It can be safely consumed in moderation, meaning no more than three packets a day. Saccharin is marketed as Sweet 'N Low®. We discourage the use of aspartame (marketed as NutraSweet' and Equal®). The FDA has approved the herb stevia for use only as a supplement, not as a sweetner.

My preference, however, is sucralose (Splenda®), the only sweetener made from sugar. Sucralose is safe, noncaloric and does not raise blood sugar. It has been used in Canada for years, and the FDA recently approved it after reviewing more than one hundred studies conducted over the past twenty years.

Note that each packet of sugar substitute contains about 1 gram of carbohydrate, so don't forget to include the amount in your daily totals.

AS stevia is not officially approved as a sweetener he could not legally recommend it as one, but I feel that the fact of him mentioning it at all means he was not against us using it if we want to use a 'natural' product in place of the artificially made ones.

[D14965]

Hi Dot

Aspartame is sweetner number 951 on labels here.