Peppermint Tea

Regarding this FDA stuff, artificial sweeteners could turn out to be completely safe. Saccarin was found in the 1970s to cause bladder cancer in rats although it was also determined that humans don't have the same type of bladder as rats and therefore, supposedly, the effect isn't the same in humans.

Lots of studies are found to be faulty after the fact but I prefer to err on the side of caution. Maybe it's safe; we don't know for sure. Humans didn't evolve eating artificial sweeteners so until we have a substantial amount of history where we do... again, I'd prefer to err on the side of caution.

I trust the FDA about 80%, if I had to quantify it. There certainly appears to be some circumstantial evidence for corruption within that agency whether it turns out to be factual or not. Once more... when it comes to health issues, err on the side of caution.

On Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016 at 1:44 am, Nitrocosm said:

That must be your catch phrase,

Ok, seriously: I don't drink diet sodas or touch that s*** either. AFAIK, we can't possibly say it's safe yet. Not only that but those fake sweeteners taste terrible.

Don't want to get fat? Go through withdrawal and learn to not crave sweets. I had to give up sweets before (diabetic scare) and it was hell for about a month. Still did it. I do eat sweets occasionally but hey, I lost 25 pounds through some self discipline and don't have to rely on artificial sweeteners to deal with cravings.

Yep, I said "err on the side of caution" three times in that last post.

Regarding sugar, yeah; it's easy to become acclimated to a diet very high in sugar and that's potentially quite dangerous. What I've been doing over the past several years is a series of periodic "detoxes" from sugar and caffeine.

Such detoxes have some unpleasant side effects like headages, lethargy, and irritability but they are well worth it. No crazy detox "potions" or anything like that - just drinking lots of water and abstaining from sweets and coffee for a while.

Artificial sweeteners always give me a bad headache for some reason, especially Splenda. I stopped using all that junk years ago. About the only thing I use anymore is honey in tea. Soda's just bad for you, period, doesn't matter if it's artificially sweetened or not.

You probably can guess from my avatar that I like real sugar.

Splenda the almost-snow fairy just doesn't have the same ring to it.

(above: Splenda the cocaine fairy)