More on Sugar...

As soon as I give my spiel to folks about how bad sugar is for them, the first question out of their mouths is, "What about Splenda (or other sugar alternative)?" The question actually betrays the depth of our addiction to sweetness; like, "I can't live without everything I eat tasting like dessert. So, if I'm taking away sugar, then PLEASE GIVE ME SOMETHING to make my food sweet or I'll die!!!" Attachment to sweetness IS the reason we're in the health crises today that we are. The top three most prolific chronic, life-threatening, epidemics on the planet: diabetes, obesity, and cancer - can all claim sugar as the gas for their engines.

So, the first answer could be a simple, "Kill your sweet tooth already!" Teach your taste buds to like food without any sweeteners at all. Break your addiction and just say, "No!" to sweetness.

Because there is always the whine: "But I can't." or "I don't want to," the second part of the answer, then, is that all widely available sugar replacements are synthetic poisons in one way or another. Most ANY time a scientist with big thick glasses takes something apart and invents something new with a chemistry set, the outcome is NOT going to be compatible with human life; there will be side effects for large numbers of people. Our bodies are really pretty ancient structures, intricately built, balanced, and maintained with the original nature God planted here on Terra Firma. Bodies have not evolved to handle chemicals cooked up in a laboratory since WWII, and they do not know what to do with artificial sweeteners! These sweeteners mix up hormone regulation of glucose, they mess up brain chemistry, they may even contribute to initiating other chronic diseases, e.g. autoimmune diseases. This is how bad artificial sweeteners are: you would be better off with sugar! Remember sugar kills, so where are we? Dead due to sweet-tooth-itis. Pull your sweet tooth and bury it for good health!

What sweeteners ARE safe? Perhaps the best one known at this moment in time is Agave Nectar. It has the lowest glycemic index of any sugar -- meaning it stirs up the least waves with insulin. It also has the fewest calories and it has more sweetness than sugar, so you can get the same sweetness with less. Stevia has been a long-standing natural sweetener. It too is sweeter than sugar. It's drawback is it has an aftertaste at higher amounts that some people find unpleasant. Honey, real maple syrup, and molasses need to be used sparingly as they will definitely up the glucose levels, but they tend to be a tiny bit slower absorbed than sugar without side effects. Their drawback is they definitely alter the taste of foods in which they are used. Those are about it for sweeteners.

So, in summary: it is best to get used to far less sweetness and forego sweeteners of all kinds. Avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague. Use sparse amounts of agave nectar where a bit is needed for a special treat.